Perseus999: In extraordinary scenes on Saturday, 9 July 2022, during a massive protest, tens of thousands of protesters broke through police barriers and stormed president’s Rajapaksa official residence. Later that night after an hours-long standoff between the riot police and the protesters, the home of the prime minister Wickremesinghe was set on fire too.
Having fled the city of Colombo with a navy ship, the Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has agreed to step down from power on 13 July.
It was a historic victory for the protesters who have been calling for Rajapaksa to resign in widespread protests since March 2022, following Sri Lanka's heavy food, fuel and medicines shortages. All sales of petrol have been suspended, schools have been shut and medical procedures and surgeries have been mostly cancelled indefinitely, and more than two-thirds of the country's 22 millions population are struggling to find food.
Having suffered for such a long time, the protesters that stormed the president's palace were shocked to see the luxury in which Rajapaksa (a former military man) was living, while the people were starving.
It has to be noted that the Rajapaksa ultranationalist family, accused of corruption and mismanaging the economy for the gain of the few, are Sri Lanka’s most powerful political dynasty, holding the positions of president, prime minister, finance minister and several other senior cabinet posts in the government.
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