Thursday, March 28

Sri Lanka protesters storm president’s house, clash with police


Article content

COLOMBO — Thousands of protesters in Sri Lanka’s commercial capital Colombo broke through police barricades and stormed the president’s official residence on Saturday in one of the largest anti-government marches in the crisis-hit country this year.

Some protesters, holding Sri Lankan flags and helmets, broke into the president’s residence, video footage from local TV news NewsFirst channel showed.

The island of 22 million people is struggling under a severe foreign exchange shortage that has limited essential imports of fuel, food and medicine, plunging it into the worst financial turmoil in seven decades.

Advertisement 2

Article content

Many blame the country’s decline on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Largely peaceful protests since March have demanded his resignation.

Thousands of people swarmed into Colombo’s government district, shouting slogans against the president and dismantling several police barricades to reach Rajapaksa’s house, a Reuters witness said.

Police fired shots in 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 a severe shortage of fuel that has stalled transportation services, demonstrators packed 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.

Advertisement 3

Article content

Discontent has worsened in recent weeks as the cash-strapped country stopped receiving fuel shipments, forcing school closures and rationing of petrol and diesel for essential services.

Sampath Perera, a 37-year-old fisherman took an overcrowded bus from the seaside town of Negombo 45 km (30 miles) north of Colombo, to join the protest.

“We have told Gota over and over again to go home but he is still clinging onto power. We will not stop until he listens to us,” Perera said.

He is among the millions squeezed by chronic fuel shortages and inflation that hit 54.6% in June.

Political instability could undermine Sri Lanka’s talks with the International Monetary Fund seeking a $3 billion bailout, a restructuring of some foreign debt and fund-raising from multilateral and bilateral sources to ease the dollar drought.

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Editing by Rupam Jain and William Mallard)

Advertisement

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.



financialpost.com