The New York Times blamed what it described as the fierce affair of buying subsidized bread in Egypt on the low income per capita, saying that making ends meet is becoming harder in Egypt where nearly 45% of the population live on less than two dollars a day.

"It is hard to make ends meet in Egypt, where about 45 percent of the population survives on just US$ 2 a day. That is one reason trying to buy subsidized bread can be a fierce affair, with fists and elbows flying, men shoving and little children dodging blows to get up to the counter," it said.

In its report titled: " Egypt’s Problem and Its Challenge: Bread Corrupts", the US-based daily described Egypt as " a state where corruption is widely viewed as systemic, which is also why the crowd gets aggressive trying to buy up the subsidized bread. Cheap state bread can be resold, often for double the original price."

"Much of what ails Egypt seems to converge in the story of subsidized bread. It speaks of a state that is in many ways stuck in the past, struggling to pull itself into the future, unable, or unwilling, to conquer corruption or even to persuade people to care about one another," added the report.

"How do you take a broken system that somehow helps feed 80 million people and fix it without causing social disorder," questioned the report, which added that this "is a challenge for Egypt at large, and for this little bakery where Mr. Mohamed ekes out a living, with a cigarette hanging from his lips and an angry crowd demanding his bread."