Sri Lanka’s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa gets govt residence and security, say officials

Sri Lanka’s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa got an official residence and security by the government as confirmed by two senior officials. He had fled on 13th July during economic unrest in Sri Lanka as his official residence and office were stormed by demonstrators angry over the economic crisis. After this, he travelled to Singapore and resigned there. Later he travelled to Thailand.

After coming back to Sri Lanka Mr. Rajapaksa met with a group of ruling party members and lawmakers at the airport before going back to his home. For now, He wasn’t even allowed to step out of his room due to security reasons. The future plans of the president are not confirmed yet.

The situation in the already bankrupt Sri Lanka was made worse by global factors like the pandemic and Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. Protesters also blame Rajapaksa’s family responsible for mismanaging the economy. The economic crisis has seen months-long shortages of essentials like fuel, medicine and cooking gas due to a severe shortage of foreign currency.

On Tuesday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $2.9 billion bailout package over four years to help the country recover from this crisis.