Sri Lanka president declares state of emergency - govt notice

FILE PHOTO: A demonstrator holding the Sri Lankan national flag is silhouetted during the protest against Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, near the Presidential Secretariat, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 15, 2022. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a state of emergency in the country effective from midnight, a government notice said late on Friday.

The decision was taken in the interests of public security, the notice said.

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe and Alasdair Pal; editing by Diane Craft)