Thousands of protesters in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo stormed the president’s official residence on Saturday (July 9) after months of mounting public anger over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Live video broadcast on Facebook by local news outlet News Cutter and sent to Reuters showed protesters inside the residence packing rooms and corridors, and chanting slogans demanding Rajapaksa’s resignation.
Two defence ministry sources said that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had left the official residence on Friday ahead of the planned rally over the weekend.
The island country 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 economic crisis since independence in 1948.
(Reuters)