Police in Buenos Aires have fired tear gas and rubber bullets to quell a looting rampage.
About 2,000 people forced open metal gates to shops as tension spilled over from the Argentinian economic crisis.
Hundreds of people protesting against the government of President Fernando De la Rua gathered in a rundown shopping district. Demonstrators lit fires in the streets and looted small shops, stealing food, clothing and shoes.
Women with shopping bags also took part, picking up goods scattered on the streets.
"We don't have any money, we are hungry and we have to eat," one woman shouted.
Police using tear gas and rubber bullets clashed with the crowd, which eventually dispersed. Five police officers were injured.
Police official Juan Alberto Saiz told the La Nacionnewspaper that some 2,000 people had taken part in the disturbance. He said about 40 shops were looted but that damage is still being assessed.
The area where the looting occurred is in a broad avenue in an area where unemployment has soared well above the nationwide average. The violence seen in San Miguel and other poor communities nationwide began late last week with supermarket lootings in Rosario and Mendoza, two major provincial cities hard-hit by unemployment.
Last week, De la Rua's beleaguered government announced that the jobless rate had risen above 18 per cent, still barely a whisker below the record unemployment spike recorded in 1995 after the Mexican peso crisis.
