A high-level government team visited Egypt’s Nile Delta city of Mahalla el- Kobra yesterday for talks with textile workers after two days of deadly riots over price hikes and low pay, reports AFP.

The demonstrations, which erupted ahead of nationwide Egyptian municipal polls on Tuesday, are seen as the latest threat to veteran President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif headed a government delegation which held talks with employees of the Misr Spinning and Weaving factory who led the Mahalla protests which began on Sunday, Mohammed al-Attar, a leading worker at the factory, told AFP.

Labour Minister Aisha Abdel Hadi has already met the workers and promised the 24,000 employees a bonus worth 15 days’ pay, Attar said. The delegation’s visit, although brief, reflects Cairo’s desire to ease tensions after two days of clashes between police firing rubber-coated bullets and thousands of people protesting at the surging cost of living.

A 15-year-old boy died after being shot by police in Mahalla, a security official and medics said on Tuesday. “Ahmed Ali Mabrouk Hamada, 15, was brought in to the hospital on Monday. He was already dead,” a doctor at Mahalla hospital said, requesting anonymity.

The doctor also said 96 people had been injured in the two days of rioting, including seven who are in critical condition. Nevertheless, life appeared to have returned to normal in Mahalla on Tuesday afternoon, with shops reopened although the city streets were littered with rocks and burnt tyres.

Relatives of the 300 people who have been arrested since Sunday waited anxiously behind steel barriers outside the city’s main police station. Around 150 were arrested on Monday when demonstrations turned violent after protesters destroyed a portrait of Mubarak, a security official told AFP.

Pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera said one of its cameramen and his assistant were arrested by security forces in Mahalla on Tuesday. The Qatar-based channel said the two were arrested “while covering events in the city” and that their current whereabouts were unknown.

Mahalla has become a flashpoint for popular protests by workers and residents against low wages and skyrocketing prices of food staples. A strike there in 2006 led to a wave of industrial action around the country. Any further protests are expected to be met with a robust police response.