Sri Lanka Declares State Of Emergency After Prez Rajapaksa Flees To Maldives, Protests At PM’s House. 10 Points

Crisis-hit Sri Lanka declared a nationwide state of emergency on Wednesday, hours after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country.

Sri Lanka LIVE Updates: Crisis-hit Sri Lanka declared a nationwide state of emergency on Wednesday, hours after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country, the Prime Minister’s office said. “Since the president is out of the country, an emergency has been declared to deal with the situation in the country,” Prime Minister’s spokesman Dinouk Colombage said. Fresh protests erupted in the crisis-hit island nation today after a mob of angry citizens stormed the prime minister’s residence in Colombo to demand that he too resign.

Here are 10 latest updates on Sri Lanka economic crisis

1. Hundreds of furious protestors enter the premises of the Sri Lankan PM’s residence in Colombo as they breach the security deployment amid tear-gas shelling. Protestors come to each other’s aid as tear-gas shots were fired at them by the security forces outside Sri Lankan PM’s residence in Colombo.
2. President Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards boarded a Male-bound military aircraft from Colombo international airport last night. Reports claim that his younger brother and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa has also left the country.
3. We want the PM to resign because as per our constitution if the President resigns PM becomes the acting President. People want both of them to leave. Police took action by tear gas shelling. Army troops moved in, says Former Advisor to Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs ministry
4. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to resign from his post later today after months of holding on to power in face of increasingly desperate and violent protests.
5. Protesters have vowed to occupy the official buildings until the top leaders are gone. For days, people have flocked to the presidential palace almost as if it were a tourist attraction — swimming in the pool, marveling at the paintings and lounging on the beds piled high with pillows. At one point, they also burned the prime minister’s private home.
6. Sri Lankan lawmakers agreed to elect a new president next week but have struggled to decide on the makeup of a new government to lift the bankrupt country out of economic and political collapse.
7. The new president will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024, and could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.
8. The current prime minister is to serve as president until a replacement is chosen — an arrangement that was sure to inflame protesters who want Wickremesinghe out immediately.
9. Sri Lankan presidents are protected from arrest while in power, and it is likely Rajapaksa planned his escape while he still had constitutional immunity. A corruption lawsuit against him in his former role as a defense official was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019.
10. Corruption and mismanagement have left the island nation laden with debt and unable to pay for imports of basic necessities. The shortages have sown despair among the country’s 22 million people. Sri Lankans are skipping meals and lining up for hours to try to buy scarce fuel.