Sri Lanka: the president fled the country and declared a “state of emergency”

Four days after thousands of people forcibly took over presidential residence in the midst of a severe economic crisis, the president of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country hours before he carries out his promised resignation. In this context, the “state of emergency “.

This was reported on Wednesday the Prime Minister’s Office, which was stormed by hundreds of protesters hours after the announcement. Protesters demand the departure of the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghewho said he will remain in office until there is a new government.

Although he predicted he would resign on Wednesday, Gotabaya Rajapaksa left before that happened. with his wife and two bodyguards. On a National Air Force plane they flew to the Maldives capital city of Male, according to an immigration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to the Maldivian media Mihaaru, a military plane carrying Rajapaksa landed in Velana International Airport around three in the morning on Wednesday (local time).

For his part, the speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, said that the leaders of the political parties have decided elect a new president on July 20 through a vote in Parliament.

The protests that forced the president of Sri Lanka to flee

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Colombo on Saturday. Both the inhabitants of the capital and others from all over the country have strongly demanded Rajapaksa’s removal from power.

Thousands of people broke into Rajapaksa’s official residences, leaving images of protesters bathing in his pool and visiting the palace bedrooms. They also entered Wickremesinghe’s private home, which was also set on fire during the day.

The Minister for the Promotion of Investments, Dhammika Pererait was one of the members of the government who submitted his resignation that Sunday, a day after tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Colombo and broke into the official residences of the president and prime minister amid police and tear gas bombs.

“Sri Lanka should quickly identify and implement a solution that will enable it to achieve economic stability and respond to the needs of the people of this country,” Perera said in his resignation letter.

In addition to Perera, the casino tycoon appointed to the post just 16 days ago, the Minister of Transport, Bandula Gunawardenehe formally left the government this Sunday.

Sri Lanka has been experiencing massive protests for months due to the impact of one of them worst economic crises that the country has had to face since its independence in 1948, resulting from the decrease in the exchange rates of international reserves and from high indebtedness.

Tension and discontent escalated on the island at the end of March, when authorities imposed power outages of more than 13 hours, leading the population to take to the streets to demand the resignation of the Sri Lankan executive.

Since then, hundreds of protesters have settled in the vicinity of the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo and peaceful protests across the island nation have become the order of the day as authorities try to reach a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). ).