The city workers, escorted by police and under cover of darkness, moved in around midnight to clear the makeshift stalls.

They carted everything to a dumping site outside the city ready for incineration.

The vendors quickly mobilised themselves and blocked the roads, stoning any vehicle - be it government or private - attempting to get round over the blockade.

All shops and offices remained closed for the best part of the morning as the angry vendors flooded the streets, chanting anti-government songs and harrassing Asian shop owners whom they accuse of conniving with city fathers to get rid of them.

Special police

Temperatures rose when the Malawi Police Service's paramilitary wing, the Police Mobile Force, joined the melee with anti-riot vehicles.

I counted more than 100 camouflaged officers, with teargas canisters and guns.

When the vendors stood their ground, the police - without warning - lobbed teargas canisters and opened fire using rubber bullets.

They then chased the traders and beat up several that they caught.

Bystanders were also caught in the crossfire.

One woman, herself choking with the teargas, had to plead with fleeing journalists to help save her five-month old child who was gasping for breath.

Another vendor and a bystander had to be rushed to the hospital after taking direct hits from a rubber bullet and a teargas canister.

Vendors, out-gunned by the riot police told me they had resolved to march to President Bakili Muluzi's Sanjika Palace to ask him to provide them with an alternative source of income.

But Blantyre City Mayor John Chikakwiya has vowed not to relent in his bid to rid the city of the vendors - whom he accuses of selling unhygienic foodstuffs.