Protesters stormed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence in the capital Colombo on Saturday, signaling that the government had effectively lost control of the city. Protesters then set fire to Wickremesinghe’s private residence hours after he resigned, the AP reported. Wickremesinghe is safe, his office said in a text message, according to Bloomberg. In a statement on Twitter earlier in the day, Wickremesinghe said his resignation would make way for an all-party government. Rajapaksa has not commented. Party leaders had called for both Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe to step down. Sri Lanka is struggling through one of the worst economic disasters in its history after its foreign exchange reserves ran out, leading to devastating shortages of fuel, food and medicine and a dramatic drop in living standards. The island of 22 million defaulted on external debt repayments in May, becoming the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so in two decades. Protesters filled the streets of Colombo on Saturday © Chamila Karunarathne/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Tens of thousands of protesters thronged downtown Colombo on Saturday calling for Rajapaksa to step down. The crowds overwhelmed the security forces, who had used tear gas and water cannons, and stormed the President’s House and the Presidential Secretariat, his office. Local media reported that Rajapaksa had been vacated from the residence on Friday in anticipation of the riots. His whereabouts were unclear. Videos on social media showed protesters swimming in the president’s pool after occupying the building. Rajapaksa defied widespread calls for him to step down and in May appointed Wickremesinghe in a bid to retain control. But Saturday’s protests marked a new low for the president, a former military leader whose hold on power has become increasingly precarious. Crowds overwhelmed security forces’ efforts to disperse them © Amitha Thennakoon/AP The clash was the most dramatic escalation of protests since May, when clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters led Wickremesinghe’s predecessor, Gotabaya’s brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, to resign as prime minister. Sri Lanka is negotiating a multibillion-dollar bailout package with the IMF and starting debt restructuring talks with its creditors, which include private bondholders and countries such as China, Japan and India. Sri Lanka owes more than $50 billion in foreign debt. An IMF team visited Colombo last month but has yet to agree on a bailout deal. The situation for Sri Lankans, who used to enjoy some of the highest living standards in South Asia, has deteriorated dramatically. The country last month banned the refueling of private vehicles in order to conserve energy for essential services. Businesses are struggling to operate due to daily blackouts lasting hours at a time, while authorities have closed schools. Many governments have advised their citizens not to travel to the country, destroying tourism, one of Sri Lanka’s major sources of foreign exchange. Rajapaksa, who comes from one of Sri Lanka’s most powerful political dynasties, was elected in 2019. Along with his brother Mahinda, who served as president between 2005 and 2015, Gotabaya helped end the island’s brutal civil war in 2009, after leading a military campaign to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels.
