A large crowd of protesters have laid siege on the residence of Sri Lanka‘s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, on Saturday, demanding his resignation, in one of the largest anti-government marches in the crisis-hit island this year.
Rajapaksa was evacuated from the house in capital Colombo before thousands of protestors stormed his residence
A Facebook livestream from inside the president’s house showed hundreds of protesters packing into rooms and corridors, shouting slogans against the beleaguered 73-year-old leader.
Footage of protesters standing and some bathing in the swimming pool inside the president’s home was widely circulated on social media.
Hundreds also milled about on the grounds outside the colonial-era white-washed building. No security officials were visible. The president has been moved to a secure but undisclosed location, reports said.
Thousands of protesters also broke open the gates of the sea-front presidential secretariat and the finance ministry, which has been the site of a sit-in protest for months, and entered the premises, TV footage showed.
Military personnel and police at both locations were unable to hold back the crowd, as they chanted slogans asking Rajapaksa to step down.
“Today is independence day for me being born in this nation, not 1948, because today we have fought for our freedom from the tyranny and the scoundrels and greedy politicians who have run our nation to ground zero,” a protester told Al Jazeera.
Protesters also broke into the Sri Lankan prime minister’s private residence and set it on fire, hours after he said he would resign when a new government is formed.
The office of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the protesters forced their way into his Colombo home on Saturday evening. It’s not immediately clear if he was inside at the time of the attack.
Earlier on Saturday, Wickremesinghe called an emergency meeting of political party leaders and requested the speaker to summon parliament, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Wickremesinghe had also been moved to a secure location, a government source told Reuters news agency.
At least 39 people, including two police officers were injured and hospitalised in the protests, hospital sources told Reuters.
