Sri Lanka students besiege PM's home even as aid talks progress

COLOMBO • Thousands of Sri Lankan university students mobbed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's home yesterday, demanding his resignation over the island nation's worsening economic crisis.

Months of lengthy blackouts, record inflation and acute food and fuel shortages have sparked increasing public discontent in Sri Lanka, which is dealing with its worst economic downturn since independence in 1948.

Yesterday's protest saw student leaders scale the fence of Mr Rajapaksa's compound in Colombo after police erected barricades on various roads around the capital to stop them from linking up with demonstrators elsewhere.

"You can block the road, but can't stop our struggle until the entire government goes home," an unidentified student leader said while standing on top of the walls.

Police said Mr Rajapaksa, head of Sri Lanka's ruling clan, was not on the premises at the time and the crowd left peacefully.

For more than two weeks, thousands of protesters have camped daily outside the seafront office of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda's younger brother, demanding the pair to step down.

Finance Minister Ali Sabry, who is in Washington to negotiate an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, warned on Friday that the economic situation in Sri Lanka will likely deteriorate even further.

In a rare bright note amid the economic crisis, the IMF said it held "fruitful technical discussions" with Sri Lanka on its loan request, while the World Bank said it was preparing an emergency aid package for the crisis-stricken country.

Sri Lanka, an island country of 22 million people, is struggling to pay for imports amid a crushing debt crisis and sharp drop in foreign exchange reserves that has fuelled soaring inflation.

The country has suspended payments on portions of its US$51 billion (S$70 billion) external debt.

The World Bank's emergency response package includes US$10 million to be made immediately available for the purchase of essential medicines - funds shifted from its ongoing Covid-19 health preparedness project, said a spokesman for the body.

The spokesman said the package would leverage existing bank-financed projects and repurpose funds to quickly provide medicines, meals for schoolchildren, and cash transfers for poor and vulnerable households.

Support to provide cooking gas, basic food supplies, seeds and fertilisers, and other essentials is also under discussion, the spokesman added.

The IMF said on Saturday that talks between its staff focused on the need for Sri Lanka to implement "a credible and coherent strategy" to restore macroeconomic stability, and to strengthen its social safety net as well as protect the poor and vulnerable during the current crisis.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS