Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa steps down after weeks-long anti-government demonstrations over financial crisis.
The move came as police imposed a nationwide curfew in response to violence in the commercial capital Colombo, where supporters of the ruling party stormed a major protest site, attacking anti-government demonstrators and clashing with police who used teargas and water cannon to drive them back.
Protests against the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s younger brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, have raged since March, amid the country’s worst financial crisis since independence, with thousands demanding the influential family quit politics for mishandling the economy.
-AA, The Guardian