- Thousands of protesters stormed the president’s house and office
- Protesters, angered by the economic crisis, are demanding the president’s resignation
- The Prime Minister calls an emergency meeting of party leaders
- At least 39 people were injured during the protests
COLOMBO, July 9 (Reuters) – Thousands of protesters in Sri Lanka’s commercial capital Colombo stormed the president’s official residence and his secretariat on Saturday, amid months of mounting public anger over the country’s worst economic crisis in seven decades.
Some protesters, holding Sri Lankan flags and wearing helmets, stormed the president’s residence, a video from local TV news channel NewsFirst showed.
Thousands also broke down the gates of the coastal presidential secretariat and the finance ministry, which have been the site of months-long sit-ins, and entered the premises, television footage showed.
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Military personnel and police in both places were unable to contain the crowd as they chanted slogans calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down.
Two defense ministry sources said President Rajapaksa was removed from the official residence on Friday for his safety ahead of a planned weekend rally.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe called an emergency meeting of party leaders on Saturday to discuss the situation and reach a quick solution, his office said in a statement.
He asked the Speaker to convene Parliament, the statement said.
Wickremesinghe has also been moved to a safe location, a government source told Reuters.
A Facebook live stream from the president’s house showed hundreds of protesters, some draped in flags, crowded into rooms and corridors, shouting anti-Rajapaksa slogans.
Videos of protesters standing and bathing in the pool at the president’s home were widely circulated on social media websites.
Hundreds also milled about in the grounds outside the colonial-era whitewashed building. There were no security personnel to be seen.
At least 39 people, including two police officers, were injured and hospitalized during the protests, hospital sources told Reuters.
ECONOMIC VALVE
The island of 22 million people is struggling with a severe currency shortage that has limited essential imports of fuel, food and medicine, plunging it into its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.
Soaring inflation, at a record 54.6% in June and expected to reach 70% in the coming months, has created difficulties for the population.
Political instability could undermine Sri Lanka’s talks with the International Monetary Fund seeking a $3 billion bailout, restructuring some of its foreign debt and raising funds from multilateral and bilateral sources to ease the dollar drought. Read more
The crisis comes after COVID-19 hit the tourism-reliant economy and reduced remittances from foreign workers, and was compounded by a massive national debt build-up, rising oil prices and a ban on chemical fertilizer imports last year that devastated agriculture. The fertilizer ban was lifted last November.
However, many blame the country’s decline on President Rajapaksa’s economic mismanagement. Largely peaceful protests since March have called for his resignation.
Thousands of people rushed into Colombo’s government quarter, shouting slogans against the president and dismantling several police barricades to reach Rajapaksa’s house, an eyewitness told Reuters.
Police fired into the air but were unable to stop the angry crowd from surrounding the presidential residence, the witness said.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the president’s whereabouts.
Despite severe fuel shortages that have crippled transport services, demonstrators have crammed into buses, trains and trucks from several parts of the country to reach Colombo to protest the government’s failure to protect them from economic ruin.
Discontent has worsened in recent weeks as the financially strapped country stopped receiving fuel shipments, forcing schools to close and petrol and diesel to be rationed for essential services. Read more
Sampat Perera, a 37-year-old fisherman, took a crowded bus from the coastal town of Negombo, 45 km (30 miles) north of Colombo, to join the protest.
“We have told Gota time and time again to go home, but he is still holding on to power. We will not stop until he listens to us,” Perera said.
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Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe, Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Rupam Jain, William Mallard and Sri Navaratnam
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