Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Saturday called an urgent cabinet meeting following President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled his official residence in the capital.
“The president has been moved to a safe place,” a senior defense official told AFP, adding that soldiers fired in the air to prevent angry protesters from taking control of the presidential palace.
Videos posted on social media showed angry protesters calling for the president’s resignation as they stormed the presidential complex.
Video footage of Sri Lankan protesters taking over President’s office in Colombo
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A local television report said that protesters demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa made their way to his official residence on Saturday, while thousands of people took to the streets in the capital to denounce the worst economic crisis in Sri Lanka in modern history.
It was not clear whether Rajapaksa was inside the presidential palace in Colombo or not, but mobile phone footage showed a large number of people inside and outside the well-fortified palace.
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In one of the clips, some protesters appeared swimming in the swimming pool inside the palace, while another clip showed the president’s luxury cars, which are inside the palace.
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The police had earlier fired tear gas at the demonstrators who surrounded the official residence as they moved towards the main gates. The demonstrators eventually broke down the barricades and entered the palace.
Protesters blame Rajapaksa for economic problems, and have occupied the entrance to his office for three months.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said last month that the country’s economy had collapsed. The government’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund were complicated because it entered the negotiations as a bankrupt country.
Last April, Sri Lanka announced the suspension of the repayment of foreign loans due to a shortage of foreign currency. Its foreign debt totals $51 billion, and it has to repay $28 billion by the end of 2027.
On Friday, the US ambassador to Sri Lanka, Julie Chung, asked people to protest peacefully and called on the army and police to “give peaceful protesters the space and security to do so.”
“Chaos will not fix the economy or bring regarding the political stability that Sri Lankans need now,” Chung said in a post on Twitter.
