Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa left his official residence in the capital Colombo on Saturday, a senior defense ministry official told AFP, before scenes of demonstrators demanding the president’s resignation storm the complex were shown on television.
“The president has been taken to a safe place,” the source said, adding that the soldiers fired into the air to prevent angry demonstrators from taking over the presidential palace. Private TV channel Serasa showed footage of the crowd entering the heavily guarded headquarters.
Sri Lanka has been suffering from food and fuel shortages, power outages and accelerating inflation for months after it ran out of foreign exchange needed to import vital goods. Large crowds flocked to the capital to take part in the demonstration, a new stage of unrest caused by the unprecedented economic crisis in that country.
Police lifted a curfew order issued on Friday after right-wing activists and the Bar Association threatened to prosecute the police chief. Thousands of anti-government demonstrators defied the curfew and even forced rail authorities to run trains to take them to Colombo to join Saturday’s rally, officials said.
