COLOMBO — Sri Lankan Prime Minister
Mahinda Rajapaksa quit on Monday, as an outbreak of political violence killed five
people including an MP and wounded almost 200.
اضافة اعلان
Lawmaker Amarakeerthi Athukorala from the ruling
party shot two people — killing a 27-year-old man — and then took his own life
after being surrounded by a mob of anti-government protesters outside Colombo,
police said.
And another ruling-party politician who was not
named opened fire on anti-government protesters in the southern town of
Weeraketiya, killing two and wounding five, according to police.
Sri Lanka has suffered months of blackouts and dire
shortages of food, fuel, and medicines in its worst economic crisis since
independence.
This sparked weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful
demonstrations against President
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as well as his brother the
prime minister.
On Monday scores of Rajapaksa loyalists attacked
unarmed protesters camping outside the president’s office on a seafront
promenade in downtown Colombo, AFP reporters said.
“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 cannon and declared
an immediate curfew in Colombo, which was later widened to include the entire
South Asian island nation of 22 million people.
A total of 181 people were hospitalized, a Colombo
National Hospital spokesman told AFP. Eight were injured elsewhere.
The army riot squad was called in to reinforce
police. Soldiers had mostly been deployed throughout the crisis to protect
deliveries of fuel and other essentials, but not to prevent clashes before.
“Strongly condemn the violent acts taking place by
those inciting & participating, irrespective of political allegiances,”
President Rajapaksa tweeted. “Violence won’t solve the current problems.”
Mahinda Rajapaksa tendered his resignation as prime
minister, saying it was to pave the way for a unity government -- but it was
unclear if the opposition would cooperate.
US condemnation
The US ambassador Julie
Chung tweeted that Washington condemned “the violence against peaceful
protestors today, and call(s) on the government to conduct a full
investigation, including the arrest & prosecution of anyone who incited
violence”.
Mary Lawlor,
UN special rapporteur, said she had
heard “disturbing reports ... of repression & disproportionate use of force
against peaceful demonstrators who are protesting against allegations of
corruption & widespread impunity in Government”.
After the Colombo violence, anti-government
protesters who had been demonstrating peacefully since April 9 began
retaliating across the island, despite the curfew.
MP Athukorala’s car was surrounded by thousands of
people in the town of Nittambuwa as he returned home from the capital after the
clashes.
He shot two people before fleeing to a nearby
building and then “took his own life with his revolver”, a police official told
AFP by telephone.
Athukorala’s bodyguard was also found dead at the
scene, police said.
Angry mobs set alight the homes of at least three
pro-Rajapaksa politicians, along with some nearby vehicles, while buses and
trucks used by the government loyalists in and around Colombo were targeted for
destruction.
Doctors at Colombo National Hospital intervened to
rescue wounded government supporters, with soldiers breaking open locks to open
the gates.
“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.
Mobs attacked the controversial Rajapaksa museum in
the family’s ancestral village in the deep south of the island and razed it to
the ground, police said. Two wax statues of the Rajapaksa parents were
flattened.
State of emergency
On Friday, the government
imposed a state of emergency granting the military sweeping powers to arrest
and detain people, after trade unions brought the country to a virtual
standstill.
The defense ministry said in a statement on Sunday
that anti-government demonstrators were behaving in a “provocative and
threatening manner” and disrupting essential services.
Sri Lanka’s crisis began after the coronavirus
pandemic hammered vital income from tourism and remittances, starving it of
foreign currency needed to pay off its debt and forcing the government to ban
many imports.
This in turn has led to severe shortages, runaway
inflation and lengthy power blackouts.
In April, the country announced it was defaulting on its $51
billion foreign debt.
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