Sri Lanka’s prime minister submits resignation amid worsening crisis

“The prime minister has submitted his resignation to the president,” an unnamed official told Reuters. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the younger brother of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.

The move came after Mr Rajapaksa’s supporters stormed a key protest site in Colombo, the country’s largest city and financial hub. They attacked people from the anti-government faction, as well as clashed with the police.

Police used tear gas and water cannon to push back the crowd. Curfew was imposed nationwide after the incident.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. twitter/@PresRajapaksa

Before the news of his resignation was broadcast, Prime Minister Rajapaksa appealed to the public “to exercise restraint and remember that violence only breeds violence”.

“The economic crisis we are in needs an economic solution that this administration is committed to solving,” he wrote on his official Twitter.

Before that, the president of Sri Lanka announced state of emergency for the second time in five weeks, amid several strikes and anti-government protests that have been going on for more than a month. People took to the streets protest government amid shortages of imported food, fuel and medicine.

In mid-April, Sri Lanka announced default, could no longer pay a total of 51 billion USD in foreign loans. Sri Lankan Finance Minister Ali Sabry last week said Sri Lanka had only about $50 million in usable foreign exchange reserves left.

Domestic energy companies say they are running out of reserves of gas used for cooking. Sri Lanka needs at least 40,000 tons of gas per month and its monthly gas import bill would be $40 million at current prices.