by Uditha Jayasinghe
COLOMBO, July 9 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s president was evacuated from his residence in Colombo, the country’s economic capital, ministerial sources said on Saturday, before thousands of protesters burst in demanding his resignation.
Two Defense Ministry sources said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was evacuated from the premises as early as Friday for his safety, ahead of the anti-government rally scheduled for the weekend.
Thousands of people invaded the government district of Colombo, knocking down several police barricades, without the security forces being able to prevent the crowd from reaching the residence of the head of state, a witness said. .
Some demonstrators, carrying the national flag, broke into the president’s official residence, according to footage broadcast by local television station NewsFirst.
Videos posted on Facebook show hundreds of Sri Lankans, some draped in flags, massing in the various rooms of the presidential palace shouting slogans against Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
No security guard was visible in the footage.
At least 21 people, including two police officers, have been injured and hospitalized during the ongoing protests, hospital sources told Reuters.
Short of foreign exchange due to economic mismanagement and the impact of the coronavirus crisis, Sri Lanka is struggling to import even essentials, causing severe shortages of medicine, food and fuel.
Many Sri Lankans blame the country’s decline on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose departure they want. (Report Uditha Jayasinghe, Devjyot Ghoshal, French version Laetitia Volga)