Lagatar24 Desk
Colombo, May 10: Sri Lanka’s former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family have taken refuge at a military installation in Trincomalee, in the country’s north-east, as deadly protests continue amid the country’s worst-ever economic crisis.
According to the sources, the former Prime Minister and his family were carried to the naval installation in a helicopter. Protests have also broken out outside the naval installation, which is about 270 kilometres from Colombo.
After five people were killed in the deadliest violence in weeks of protests over the unprecedented economic crisis, Sri Lanka deployed thousands of army and police to enforce a curfew today. Yesterday, about 200 people were injured as Mr Rajapaksa resigned, but this did little to assuage public outrage.
Notably, months of blackouts and shortages in Sri Lanka, the country’s greatest economic crisis since independence in 1948, have weakened the Rajapaksa family’s grip on power. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, on the other hand, remains in power and has command of the security forces.
The President’s invitation to create an interim government under him was rejected today by Sri Lanka’s major opposition party, Samagi Jana Balawegaya, or SJB. The SJB, on the other hand, has called for the President’s resignation.
The violence began yesterday when supporters of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had been bussed into the capital from the countryside, attacked protestors with sticks and clubs.
Thousands of anti-government demonstrators flooded into his official residence in Colombo overnight, prompting police to fire tear gas and warning shots to keep the throng at bay. He was rescued by the military in a pre-dawn operation today.
