Protesters set fire to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private residence Saturday, hours after he said he will step down following mass demonstrations.
Wickremesinghe is safe, his office said in a text message, without elaborating. The prime minister has held the job for about two months after earlier protests forced out his predecessor.
The attack came at the end of a long day of protests that included demonstrators breaching security cordons near the presidential palace and entering Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence. The president had left the compound Saturday morning and his whereabouts were not known, according to his secretary.
Wickremesinghe had said he was taking the decision to step down to avoid more violence as fuel distribution was set to restart and the debt sustainability report for the International Monetary Fund was due to be finalized shortly.
Earlier, protesters demanding the resignation of Rajapaksa breached security barricades and entered his official residence, braving tear gas and water cannons amid reports the leader has left his compound.
Rajapaksa was escorted to safety away from the compound, Agence France-Presse cited an unidentified defense official as saying. Calls to the president’s secretary and media unit went unanswered.
Civil-rights activists, religious leaders and artists were among thousands from across the South Asian island who gathered Saturday at an oceanfront protest site near the presidential residence in the capital, Colombo.
Ahead of the protest, Omalpe Sobitha, a senior Buddhist monk at one of the main monastic orders and an outspoken critic of the government, told reporters the crisis is not the result of famine or natural disaster but mis-governance.
Sri Lanka is in the worst tailspin of its independent history, with inflation seen hitting 70%. It has been facing shortages of everything from fuel to medicine for months, prompting protests that led to the resignations of all the Rajapaksa family members who were in the government, except for the president.
Gotabaya has side-stepped demands for his resignation and appointed long-time opponent Wickremesinghe as prime minister in May after the largely peaceful protests turned violent.
Economic activity has come to a grinding halt, with residents urged to stay home until July 10 to save fuel. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka on Thursday raised borrowing costs by 100 basis points as prices continued their record rise in June, driven by the shortages and dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.
Outside Wickremesinghe’s home Saturday, government troops had used batons to try and push back journalists who were covering the protests taking place.
“The prime minister expresses grave regret over the assault on journalists who are covering the ongoing protests, by security personnel,” a statement from his media unit said.
“Freedom of media is paramount to democracy in Sri Lanka. The prime minister requests both the security forces and the protesters to act with restraint to prevent any violence and ensure the safety of the public,” the statement added.
