Sri Lanka yesterday deployed thousands of troops and police 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 Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned as prime minister, but that did little to calm public anger.
Rajapaksa had to be rescued in a pre-dawn operation by the military yesterday, after thousands of anti-government protesters stormed his official residence in Colombo overnight, with police firing tear gas and warning shots to keep back the crowd.
Photo: AP
“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 its independence in 1948.
However, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa remains in office, with widespread powers and command over the security forces.
After weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government demonstrations, violence broke out on Monday when Mahinda Rajapaksa’s supporters — bused into the capital from the countryside — attacked protestors 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 tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds and declared an immediate curfew in Colombo, a measure that was later widened to include the entire South Asian nation of 22 million people.
Authorities said that the curfew would be lifted this morning, with government and private offices, as well as shops and schools, ordered to remain shut yesterday.
US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung wrote on Twitter that Washington condemned “the violence against peaceful protestors,” and called on the Sri Lankan “government to conduct a full investigation, including the arrest & prosecution of anyone who incited violence.”
Anti-government protesters defied police despite the curfew to retaliate against government supporters for the attacks late into Monday night.
Outside Colombo, Sri Lankan lawmaker Amarakeerthi Athukorala, of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party, shot two people — killing a 27-year-old man — after being surrounded by a mob of anti-government protesters, police said.
“He then took his own life with his revolver,” a police official said.
Athukorala’s bodyguard was also found dead at the scene, police said.
Another ruling party politician who was not named opened fire on protesters, killing two and wounding five in the deep south of the island, police said.
Angry crowds set alight the homes of more than a dozen pro-Rajapaksa politicians, along with some vehicles, while buses and trucks used by the government loyalists in and around Colombo were also targeted.
Several Rajapaksa homes were torched in different parts of the country, while a family museum in their ancestral village was trashed.
Doctors at the main Colombo National Hospital intervened to rescue wounded government supporters, with soldiers breaking open locked gates to ferry in the wounded.
“They may be murderers, but for us they are patients who must be treated first,” a doctor shouted at a mob blocking the entrance to the emergency unit.
Pakistani police yesterday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her TikTok account. In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces. “The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said. Investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor,” the police report said. The man was subsequently arrested. The girl’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” said police in
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The Russian minister of foreign affairs warned the US, South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited the ally country for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday in Wonsan City, North Korea, where he met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim during the meeting reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “unconditionally support and encourage all measures” taken by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Moscow share identical views on “all strategic issues in
‘FALSE NARRATIVE’: China and the Solomon Islands inked a secretive security pact in 2022, which is believed to be a prelude to building a Chinese base, which Beijing denied The Australian government yesterday said it expects China to spy on major military drills it is conducting with the US and other allies. It also renewed a charge — denounced by Beijing as a “false narrative” — that China wants to establish a military base in the South Pacific. The comments by a government minister came as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a six-day visit to China to bolster recently repaired trade ties. More than 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations are set to join in the annual Talisman Sabre exercises from yesterday across Australia and Papua New Guinea. “The Chinese military have