Sky News published July 9, 2022: Sri Lanka's President has said that he'll resign on Wednesday after his residence was stormed by thousands of demonstrators and the Prime Minister's home was set on fire. Anti-government protests have gripped the country amid a deepening economic crisis.
The New York Post
written by Isabel Vincent
Saturday July 9, 2022
Sri Lanka’s embattled president offered his resignation Saturday as protestors overran the capital and stormed the presidential palace and the private residence of the country’s prime minister.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said he will step down on July 13, according to a video statement released by Parliamentary Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, according to adaderana.lk, a Sri Lankan news service.
“The decision to step down on 13 July was taken to ensure a peaceful handover of power,” Abeywardena said. “I therefore request the public to respect the law and maintain peace,” he said.
The speaker also said that Rajapaksa, who holds American as well as Sri Lankan citizenship, and has ruled over the South Asian country since 2019, has agreed to implement decisions taken at a meeting of political party leaders Saturday evening.
The news of the president’s decision triggered an eruption of celebratory fireworks in parts of Colombo, the nation’s capital.
The statement came as flames rose from the home of the country’s prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who agreed to step down as thousands of protestors descended on Colombo.
Earlier in the day, militants protesting the country’s rampant inflation and a shortage of fuel, food and medicine, swarmed the presidential residence, with many diving into the pool.
Video footage on local news channels showed a huge fire and smoke coming from Wickremesinghe’s private home in an affluent Colombo neighborhood. His office said that protesters had started the fire.
There were no immediate reports of injuries in the blaze. Wickremesinghe had moved to a secure location, a government source told Reuters early in the day.
Inside the president’s house earlier in the day, a Facebook livestream showed hundreds of protesters, some draped in the national flag, packing into rooms and corridors.
Video footage showed some of them splashing in the swimming pool, while others sat on a four-poster bed and sofas. Some could be seen emptying out a chest of drawers in images that were widely circulated on social media.
At least 39 people, including two police officers, were injured and hospitalized during the protests, hospital sources told Reuters.
DW News published July 8, 2022: How Sri Lanka plans to overcome its economic crisis.
Sri Lanka is bankrupt and its unprecedented economic crisis is set to last until at least the end of next year, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told lawmakers in parliament on Tuesday. Wickremesinghe said the island nation's bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were reliant on finalizing a debt restructuring plan with creditors by August. He said that recent discussions with the IMF sparked hope "but this time the situation is different. In the past, we have held discussions as a developing country."
"We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation," he said as he explained a possible roadmap for recovery from Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis since it gained independence from Britain in 1948.
"Due to the state of bankruptcy our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to them separately. Only when [the IMF] are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement." The island nation's 22 million people have suffered months of surging inflation and lengthy power cuts after the government ran out of foreign currency to import essential goods. In light of the news, the UK government warned against travel to the island nation, saying it was experiencing "shortages of basic necessities including medicines, cooking gas, fuel and food."
Debts of more than $50 billion
With debts of more than $50 billion (€48.5 billion) owed to foreign creditors, Sri Lanka is fast running out of gasoline, medicine and food. Last month, the Sri Lankan government rationed the supply of fuel to essential services such as transport, health and food deliveries in an effort to "conserve the little reserves we have," the government said. Schools are closed all week, and the government has asked employees not working in essential services to stay home.
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