Sri Lanka is in the grip of its greatest economic crisis, and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who has been blamed for mismanaging the country’s finances, resigned Thursday night after fleeing to the Maldives and then Singapore. The country has been shaken by violent protests, with tens of thousands storming official facilities, including the president’s and prime minister’s mansions, and supplies of food, fuel, and vital products are scarce, if not exhausted. A photo of a couple kissing in a sea of agitators, tweeted by Newswire, the country’s largest news aggregator, has gone viral amid the disturbance.
Because of its economic and political turmoil, Sri Lanka has drawn a lot of attention and made headlines. On Wednesday, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa escaped to Male in the Maldives.
Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena named Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting President shortly after Gotabaya’s departure. This enraged the protesters even more, and they increased their call for a change in government.
Sri Lanka, a 22-million-person country, is in the grip of historic economic instability, the worst in seven decades, with millions unable to acquire food, medication, fuel, and other necessities.
