Demonstrators have been calling for the ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
As demonstrators gathered to call for his resignation, the troubled President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, left his official house in Colombo on Saturday, a top defense source told AFP.
The source stated that “the President was led to safety” and added that soldiers fired shots into the air to keep mobs of enraged people from taking over the President’s Palace.
Private station Sirasa TV showed hundreds entering the hitherto heavily guarded home.
After running out of foreign cash to import essential products, Sri Lanka has endured months of food and fuel shortages, protracted blackouts, and escalating inflation.
The march, the most recent manifestation of dissatisfaction brought on by the island nation’s unparalleled economic crisis, drew sizable crowds into the capital.
After threats to sue the police chief from opposition parties, rights advocates, and the bar association, police withdrew a curfew order that had been issued on Friday.
According to officials, thousands of anti-government protestors disobeyed the directive to stay at home and even compelled railroad authorities to run trains to transport them to Colombo for the event on Saturday.