Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has left from Maldives for Singapore on a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight as anger grows in his home country over his refusal to formally resign, according to reports.
The security source stated that he is expected to land at Changi Airport in Singapore on Thursday night.
According to reports, Rajapaksa had been hoping to obtain a “private jet” from a close family member in Colombo, but that plan had “not materialised.”
Rajapaksa fled to Maldives from Sri Lanka in the early hours of Wednesday, the same day he was supposed to resign, and had been in the Maldives for one day.
However, as of Thursday, the speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament had not received a formal letter of resignation.
After President Rajapaksa fled, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe was named acting president; however, the decision sparked further demonstrations calling for Mr. Wickremesinghe to step down as well.
Ranil Wickremesinghe responded calling a curfew on Thursday for a second day. To put an end until protests, his government imposed a curfew on Friday from noon (06:30 GMT) to 5:00.
Following the protests on Wednesday that took place at significant sites throughout the Colombo city, including the prime minister’s office, 84 people were injured.
Since April, there have been significant protests against the nation’s economic crisis, but this past week they have intensified as protestors broke into the presidential palace on Saturday and set fire to the prime minister’s private residence.
The economy of Sri Lanka has collapsed, and the cost of food, petrol, and other necessities has skyrocketed for common people.
