News Desk :
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been appointed as the crisis-hit country’s acting president, hours after embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country for the Maldives.
Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency and curfew as protesters took to the streets of the commercial capital of Colombo and stormed the prime minister’s office, but he later canceled both orders.
The turmoil follows escalating anger over a crippling economic crisis, with Rajapaksa accused of high-level corruption and mismanagement that ultimately bankrupted the nation, reports news agencies.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has fled the country on Wednesday, hours before his promised resignation amid widespread protests over his handling of the country’s worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.
Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards flew on a Sri Lankan Air Force plane to Male, the capital of the Maldives, the Sri Lankan Air Force confirmed in a statement on Wednesday, reports agencies.
“Under the provisions of the Constitution and on a request by the government, the Sri Lanka Air Force provided a plane early today to fly the president, his wife and two security officials to the Maldives,” the statement said.
News agencies earlier reported the president’s departure for Male, citing unnamed government and immigration officials.
The president had said he would resign on Wednesday to make way for a unity government after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his official residence on Saturday, demanding he step down.
Rajapaksa, who helped end the country’s long-running civil war as defence secretary during his elder brother’s administration more than a decade ago, was elected president in 2019 promising security and stability.
But moves to cut taxes depleted government revenues and the country began running out of fuel, food and medicines
