Brawls as Sri Lankan fuel, hope at low ebb

Humanitarian crisis may be coming

Chamila Nilanthi is tired of all the waiting. The 47-year-old mother of two spent three days lining up to get kerosene in the Sri Lankan town of Gampaha, northeast of the capital Colombo. Two weeks earlier, she spent three days in a queue for cooking gas — but got none.

“I am totally fed up, exhausted,” she said. “I don’t know how long we have to do this.”

A few years ago Sri Lanka’s economy was growing strongly enough to provide jobs and financial security for most. It’s now in a state of collapse, dependent on aid from India and other countries as its leaders desperately try to negotiate a bailout with the International Monetary Fund.

What’s happening in the nation of

22 million is worse than the usual financial crises seen in the developing world: It’s a complete economic breakdown that has left ordinary people struggling to buy food, fuel and other necessities and has brought political unrest and violence.

“It really is veering quickly into a humanitarian crisis,” said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development in Washington.

Such disasters are more common in poorer countries, in sub-Saharan Africa or in war-torn Afghanistan. In middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka they are rarer but not unheard of: six million Venezuelans have fled their oil-rich country due to a seemingly unending political crisis that has devastated the economy.

Indonesia, once touted as an “Asian Tiger” economy, endured Depression-level deprivation in the late 1990s that led to riots and political unrest and swept away a strong man who’d held power for three decades. The country now is a democracy and a member of the Group of

20 biggest industrial economies. Sri Lanka’s crisis is largely the result of staggering economic mismanagement combined with fallout from the pandemic, which along with 2019 terrorism attacks devastated its tourism industry.

The Covid-19 crisis also disrupted the flow of payments home from Sri Lankans working abroad.

The government took on big debts and slashed taxes in 2019, depleting the treasury just as Covid hit. Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves plummeted, leaving it unable to pay for imports or defend its beleaguered currency, the rupee.

Ordinary Sri Lankans — especially the poor — are paying the price. They wait for days for cooking gas and petrol — in lines that can extend more than 2km. Sometimes, like Chamila Nilanthi, they go home with nothing.

Eleven people have died waiting for petrol. The latest was a 63-year-old man found dead inside his vehicle on the outskirts of Colombo. Unable to get petrol, some have given up driving and resorted to bicycles or public transportation to get around.

The government has closed urban schools and some universities and is giving civil servants every Friday off for three months, to conserve fuel and allow them time to grow their own fruit and vegetables.

Food price inflation is running at 57 per cent, and 70 per cent of households surveyed by UNICEF last month reported cutting back on food consumption. Many families rely on government rice handouts and donations from charities and generous individuals.

Unable to find cooking gas, many Sri Lankans are turning to kerosene stoves or cooking over open fires.

Affluent families can use electric induction ovens for cooking, unless the power is out. But most Sri Lankans can’t afford those stoves or higher electric bills.

Sri Lankans furious over fuel shortages have staged protests, blocked roads and confronted police. Fights have broken out when some try to jump ahead in fuel lines. Police have attacked unruly crowds.

The crisis is crushing for the middle class. Until it all came apart, they enjoyed financial security and increasing standards of living. AP