President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife left on a plane bound for the Maldives just hours before he promised to resign
Sri Lanka’s president fled the country early Wednesday, slipping away only hours before he promised to resign under pressure from protesters angry over a devastating economic crisis. But crowds quickly trained their ire on the prime minster, storming his office and demanding he also go.
While Rajapaksa agreed under pressure to resign Wednesday, Wickremesinghe has said he would only leave once a new government was in place. At dawn, the protesters took a break from chanting as the Sri Lankan national anthem blared from speakers. A few waved the flag. Protesters accuse the president and his relatives of siphoning money from government coffers for years and Rajapaksa’s administration of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy.
As the protests escalated Wednesday outside the prime minister’s compound, his office imposed a state of emergency that gives broader powers to the military and police and declared an immediate curfew in the western province that includes Colombo.
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