Many Sri Lankans flee capital as political leaders meet to seek solution to crisis

COLOMBO: Thousands of Sri Lankans flocked to buses in the capital, Colombo, on Thursday to return home, as political leaders prepared to meet after the prime minister resigned and went into hiding, and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa threatened pandemonium.

Hundreds of people flocked to the commercial capital’s main bus station as officials lifted an indefinite curfew at 7 a.m. (0130 GMT). At 2 p.m., the curfew will be reinstated.

The island nation, which is experiencing its worst economic crisis since independence, was rocked by violence earlier this week after supporters of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s elder brother, former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, attacked an anti-government protest camp in Colombo’s commercial capital.

Days of retaliation against government officials linked to the Rajapaksa clan ensued. According to officials, 9 people were murdered and another 300 were injured in the skirmishes.
Protesters splashed graffiti on Mahinda Rajapaksa’s home and trashed a museum dedicated to his father in a southern town. They have vowed to continue protesting until the president resigns as well. Read the entire story

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After the conflict erupted, Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned and is sheltering at a military facility in the country’s northeast. His brother announced on Wednesday that he will select a new prime minister and cabinet this week “to avoid the country from devolving into chaos as well as to keep the government’s operations running.”

On Thursday, the streets of Colombo’s main city remained quiet, with only a few residents venturing out to buy basic necessities. Later in the day, political party leaders were scheduled to meet with the country’s parliament speaker to discuss the present situation.

President Rajapaksa has repeatedly called for a unity government to find a way out of the situation, but opposition leaders have said they will not serve until he resigns for the crises’ management.

The island nation is undergoing its biggest financial crisis since 1948, because to the pandemic, rising oil prices, and tax cuts by the populist Rajapaksa government.

Useable foreign reserves are as low as $50 million, inflation is out of control, and fuel shortages have prompted thousands of people to go to the streets in more than a month of anti-government rallies that had been mostly calm until Monday.

Failure to find a solution to the situation in the next one to two weeks, according to Sri Lanka’s central bank governor, may result in power outages of up to 10 to 12 hours per day, as well as his own departure.