Economic crisis: Sri Lanka President flees as citizens storm residence

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President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was reportedly moved to safety as crowds broke through a police cordon. Sri Lanka is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence, with severe fuel and medicine shortages.

Tens of thousands of protesters demanding Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the government’s resignation stormed his official residence on Saturday.

Rajapaksa was moved to a safer area, an official within his office told news agency dpa, while AFP cited a top defense source as saying “the president was escorted to safety.”

The people are struggling to get jobs, pay rent, buy food, medicine, petroleum products, among others.

Videos and photos showing protesters breaking in and swimming in the President’s house have emerged. Some were cooking food in the kitchen as others moved about for a tour of the presidential residence.

With a population of 22 million, the South Asian nation faces its worst financial crisis in decades.

At least 16 members of parliament from Rajapaksa’s party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna have asked him to resign.

During the latest protests at Rajapaksa’s residence, a regular fixture in recent weeks, troops fired in the air, trying to prevent the angry crowds from overrunning the palace, but eventually the protesters managed to break through.

Shortly after, protesters managed to breach the president’s offices, located less than a kilometer from Rajapaksa’s residence.

As a result of Saturday’s upheaval, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe summoned an emergency meeting of political party leaders.

He also requested the speaker to summon parliament at short notice, a statement from the prime minister’s office confirmed.

The island nation is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948.

The president has so far refused to resign. However, in an apparent bid to appease the protesters, he has fired several of his close relatives from top government positions, including two of his brothers who until recently served as the country’s prime minister and finance minister.

In May, Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister and is currently also in charge of heading the Finance Ministry. He has pledged to establish a relief program and a new economic plan which would allow him to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Wickremesinghe said the country’s bailout talks with the IMF were reliant on finalizing a debt restructuring plan with creditors by August, and that was made all the more difficult as the country is “bankrupt,” with debts now totaling over $50 billion (€49.1 billion).

Sri Lanka’s 22 million people have suffered months of surging inflation and lengthy power cuts after the government ran out of foreign currency to import essential goods, such as food, fuel and medicine.

(AFP, Reuters, dpa, AP)

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