Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family taken to safety by heavily armed soldiers as anti-government protesters storm gates.
Heavily armed troops have evacuated outgoing Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa from his official residence in Colombo after thousands of protesters breached the main gate in the worst violence in weeks of protests over an unprecedented economic crisis.
Protesters who forced their way into the prime minister’s official Temple Trees residence then attempted to storm the main two-storey building on Tuesday where Rajapaksa was holed up with his immediate family.
“After a pre-dawn operation, the former PM and his family were evacuated to safety by the army,” a top security official told AFP news agency. “At least 10 petrol bombs were thrown into the compound.”
Rajapaksa’s evacuation to an undisclosed location followed a day of violent protests in which five people, including a member of parliament, were killed and nearly 200 wounded, and marks a sudden fall from grace for the man who has dominated Sri Lankan politics for nearly 20 years.
The security official said police kept up a barrage of tear gas and fired warning shots in the air to hold back protesters at all three entrances to the colonial-era building, a key symbol of state power.
Elsewhere, dozens of properties linked to top Rajapaksa loyalists were torched and mobs attacked the controversial Rajapaksa museum in the family’s ancestral village in the island’s south, razing it to the ground, police said.
Two wax statues of the Rajapaksa parents were flattened.
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.
The sudden surge in violence comes despite a curfew and a state of emergency that was imposed on Friday.
The emergency order from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the outgoing premier’s younger brother, gives sweeping powers to the military amid vocal demands for him to step down over the country’s deepening economic crisis.
Protesters and Sri Lankan religious leaders have blamed the former prime minister for instigating the family’s supporters to attack unarmed protesters on Monday and fuelling the violence.
Curfew after deadly unrest
Sri Lankan authorities deployed thousands of troops and police on Tuesday to enforce a nationwide curfew.
Streets were calm on Tuesday in the commercial capital of Colombo following a day of deadly unrest.
“The situation is calmer now, though there are still reports of sporadic unrest,” said police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa.
No arrests have yet been made in the isolated incidents of violence, he said, adding that three of the five deaths had been from gunshot injuries.
Authorities said the curfew will be lifted Wednesday morning, with government and private offices, as well as shops and schools, ordered to remain shut on Tuesday.
US Ambassador Julie Chung tweeted 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”.
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