Wielding sticks and hurling stones that smashed the windshields of cars and buses, the rioters jammed the narrow streets of the Somalian capital, screaming, "Down with those suffocating us!"

The protesters in Mogadishu, including women and children, marched against the refusal of traders to accept old 1,000-shilling notes, which are increasingly being counterfeited.

Within an hour, a reporter for the Associated Press watched their ranks swell to tens of thousands, and the riot spread to all 13 districts of the capital. Some threw rocks at shops, and chaos erupted at the capital's main Bakara market.

Hundreds of shops and restaurants in southern Mogadishu closed for fear of looting. At least four people were injured, witnesses said.

The Asian Development Bank said yesterday that a billion poor people in Asia need food aid to help cope with the skyrocketing prices.

The president of Senegal said the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization should be dismantled, calling it a "money pit" and blaming it for the food crisis.

Soaring fuel prices, growing demand from the burgeoning middle classes in India and China, and poor weather have contributed to a jump in food prices worldwide. Africa has been hit particularly hard. There have been riots in Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.

In Mogadishu, the price of cornmeal has more than doubled since January. Rice has risen during the same period from $26 for a 110-pound sack to $47.50.

The cost of food has also been driven up by the plummeting Somalian shilling, which has lost nearly half its value against the U.S. dollar this year because of growing insecurity and a market clogged with millions of counterfeit notes. The shilling has tumbled from about 17,000 per dollar to about 30,000.

"First we have been killed with bullets; now they are killing us with hunger," said protester Halima Omar Hassan, a porter who hefts goods for people on her back.

Abdinur Farah, a protester, said his uncle was killed when government troops opened fire.

"He was just peacefully expressing his feelings," said Farah, who was marching with his uncle and his uncle's two wives and six children. "It is saddening that the very government which is supposed to support him, killed him."

In a statement late Sunday, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said he had long called for the Food and Agriculture Organization to be moved from Rome to Africa, "near the 'sick ones' it pretends to care for."

But, he added, "this time, I'm going further: It must be eliminated."

Wade suggested its assets be transferred to the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development, which he said was more efficient, and had set up headquarters in Africa "at the heart of the problem." The FAO declined comment.

Wade's government in the West African nation of Senegal, across the continent from Somalia, responded to protest marches by securing a deal with India that ensures Senegal's needs of 600,000 tons of rice a year are met for the next six years.