Lankan Students March to PM’s House As Protests Spiral

Sri Lanka economic crisis: Students were seen marching towards the Prime Minister’s house in rain

New Delhi: Sri Lanka today shut down embassies in Iraq, Norway and Australia as the island nation battles massive protest due to shortage of funds, which has hit import of essentials like medicine and oil.

Sri Lanka’s President lost his parliamentary majority today as former allies urged his resignation, following days of street protests over the island nation’s crippling economic crisis.Severe shortages of food, fuel and other essentials — along with record inflation and crippling power cuts — have inflicted widespread misery in the country’s most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948.President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s once-powerful ruling coalition is in turmoil after a string of defections, capped today by the new Finance Minister’s resignation just one day after taking office.

Massive protests have spread across the country of 22 million despite the emergency laws allowing troops to detain participants and a weekend curfew that lapsed on Monday morning.

Crowds have attempted to storm the homes of more than a dozen government figures, including the president’s house in Colombo. Protesters there torched the vehicles of security forces, who responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas.

A critical lack of foreign currency has left Sri Lanka struggling to service its ballooning $51 billion foreign debt, with the pandemic torpedoing vital revenue from tourism and remittances. The result has seen unprecedented shortages with no sign of an end to the economic woes. Economists say Sri Lanka’s crisis has been exacerbated by government mismanagement, years of accumulated borrowing and ill-advised tax cuts.