The move follows months of turmoil in the country that saw a new president elected
Sri Lankan security forces raided an anti-government protest camp outside the presidential office in Colombo on Friday. It comes amid a months-long political crisis sparked by a financial meltdown.
“A joint operation involving the military, police and police special forces was launched in the early hours to recover the presidential secretariat from the protesters as they have no legal right to hold it,” police spokesperson Nalin Thalduwa told Reuters news agency.
According to police, the raid led to nine arrests, two of those detained were injured. The organizers of the protest claim that at least 50 people were injured, including several journalists. They also say they planned to hand over the presidential offices peacefully, an intention the police said they had no knowledge of.
Read more
Riots erupt as president flees country
The demonstrators accused authorities of a violent crackdown. “They beat us really cruelly,” an activist told Reuters. “Mr Wickremesinghe doesn’t know what democracy is,” he added.
Media footage from the scene appears to show soldiers in riot gear, armed with rifles, marching towards the camp, known as Gota Go Gama, that had been in place since April. The name of the camp makes an apparent reference to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s former president, and calls for his resignation.
The move comes after Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as president on Thursday after his predecessor fled the country and resigned. Sri Lanka has faced unrest for several months over severe food and fuel shortages and record inflation.
The crisis has been blamed on the Covid-19 pandemic, which cut tourist revenue for the island, and Rajapaksa’s ban on chemical fertilizers, which was a major blow to the agricultural sector.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in the UAE on Friday afternoon to personally extend his condolences over the death of Sheikh Saeed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the...
Sometime this summer, if President Vladimir Putin can be believed, Russia moved some of its short-range nuclear weapons into Belarus, closer to Ukraine and onto NATO’s doorstep. The declared deployment of the...
Prayers started pouring in as the UAE woke up to the news of a leader’s death on Thursday. The President’s brother, Sheikh Saeed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, representative of the...
The Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia has introduced electronic visas in place of visa stickers in twelve countries including Pakistan. The move comes as part of the ongoing...
MANILA, Philippines — A powerful typhoon blew closer to the northern Philippines on Tuesday, forcing thousands to evacuate and halting sea travel amid warnings of torrential rains and...
