Lagatar24 Desk
Colombo, April 1: Hundreds of demonstrators marched through dark streets and assembled before President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s mansion in Colombo on Thursday night to organize a demonstration. They even attempted a raid on his home, but were thwarted by armed soldiers. Using tear gas and water cannons, the police were able to disperse the mob. In Colombo, a curfew has been enforced.
Notably, people in Sri Lanka are facing a very dark future as the country’s greatest economic crisis in decades has brought more power outages and despair. The country ran out of diesel on Thursday, and the island nation of 22 million people is experiencing continuous power outages lasting up to 13 hours a day due to the government’s inability to pay for fuel imports due to a currency shortage.
People are now blaming the government for the worst economic crisis since its Independence in 1948.
On Friday, security personnel were deployed around Sri Lanka’s capital after protestors attempted to attack the president’s residence in protest of the country’s worst economic crisis since independence.
After Thursday night’s rioting in Colombo, police said they arrested 45 people, one of whom was badly injured.
A curfew imposed overnight was lifted early Friday morning, but police and military presence were increased across the city, where the burnt-out wreckage of a bus remained blocking the route leading to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence.