Anti-government protesters in Sri Lanka, who forced the country’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to leave after occupying the presidential residence last weekend, announced today that they are ending their occupation of public buildings.
Rajapaksa temporarily fled to the Maldives and from there on a Saudi Airlines flight he will go to Singapore and later to Saudi Arabia.
“We are leaving the presidential palace, the presidential secretariat and the prime minister’s offices peacefully and immediately, but we will continue our struggle,” a spokeswoman said.
A few hours before the withdrawal was announced, police pushed back protesters trying to enter parliament.
Demonstrators stormed the offices of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday after storming Rajapaksa’s presidential palace on Saturday, forcing him to flee abroad.
About 85 people were injured in the clashes and one man died of suffocation due to tear gas.
Wickremesinghe, appointed interim president by the head of state, had called for the evacuation of public buildings and ordered police to do “whatever is necessary to restore order”.
A Buddhist priest who supports the movement called today to vacate the presidential palace, a more than 200-year-old building, to save the valuables inside.
“This building is a national treasure and must be protected,” monk Omalpe Sobita told reporters. “There must be a proper audit and the property returned to the state.”
Hundreds of thousands of people have visited the residence since it opened to the public after Rajapaksa fled on Saturday.
A curfew is in place only for Colombo from midday until the early hours of tomorrow in a bid to prevent further unrest.
Rajapaksa had promised to resign on Wednesday, but no announcement was made.
From the Maldives where he had originally taken refuge, he took a private jet with his wife and two bodyguards to Singapore.
Source: Capital
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