Jakarta – Hundreds of Indonesians marched some 100 kilometres in East Java to protest high food prices, damaging a shop and one vehicle, a report said Tuesday.

A crowd gathered at the Kalibaru subdistrict in Banyuwangi district on the eastern tip of East Java province on Monday to protest high food prices and later attacked a shop there, the Kompas daily said.

The growing crowd, yelling slogans demanding that traders lower the high prices of basic foodstuffs, moved on towards the neighbouring Glenmore sub-district and continued through five other sub-districts.

The long and noisy convoy was tightly guarded by the police who limited their operations to preventing destruction of property, the daily said.

Shops along the main road linking the seven sub-districts closed down for fear of violence. One vehicle was damaged by the marchers but there was no further violence reported and the protesters disbanded peacefully in the Gambiran sub-district more than four hours after the protest started.

There were no arrests, Banyuwangi district police chief Lieutenant Colonel Eddy Murdiono was quoted as saying.