Bite a bullet for this
SRI LANKA: CURFEW FOLLOWS RIOTS AS LEADER RESIGNS
Sri Lankan authorities issued shoot-on-sight orders yesterday to quell further unrest a day after the island was rocked by deadly riots. The defence ministry said troops ‘have been ordered to shoot on sight anyone looting public property or causing harm to life’. This bus was torched during clashes between government supporters and anti-government protesters.
Sri Lanka deployed thousands of troops and police yesterday to enforce a curfew after five people were killed in the worst violence in weeks of protests over an unprecedented economic crisis.
Nearly 200 were also wounded on Monday as prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned.
But that did little to calm public anger.
He had to be rescued in a predawn operation by the military yesterday after thousands of antigovernment protesters stormed his official residence in Colombo overnight, with police firing teargas and warning shots to keep back the crowd.
“After a pre-dawn operation, the former PM and his family were evacuated to safety by the army,” a top security official said. “At least 10 petrol bombs were thrown into the compound.”
The Rajapaksa clan’s hold on power has been shaken by months of blackouts and shortages in Sri Lanka, the worst economic crisis since it became independent in 1948.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa remains in office, however, with widespread powers and command over the forces.
After weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful antigovernment demonstrations, violence broke out on Monday when Mahinda Rajapaksa’s supporters – bussed into the capital from the countryside – attacked protesters with sticks and clubs.
“We were hit, the media were hit, women and children were hit,” one witness said, asking not to be named.
Police fired teargas and water cannons to disperse crowds and declared an immediate curfew in Colombo, a measure later widened to include the entire South Asian nation of 22 million people.
Authorities said the curfew will be lifted this morning, with government and private offices, as well as shops and schools, ordered to remain shut yesterday.
US ambassador Julie Chung tweeted that Washington condemned “the violence against peaceful protesters” and called on the Sri Lankan “government to conduct a full investigation, including the arrest & prosecution of anyone who incited violence”.
Despite the curfew, antigovernment protesters defied police to retaliate against government supporters for the attacks into Monday night.
Outside Colombo, ruling party lawmaker Amarakeerthi Athukorala shot two people – killing a 27-year-old man – after being surrounded by a mob of antigovernment protesters, police said.
He then took his own life with his revolver. –
Nearly 200 wounded as prime minister resigns