President flees Sri Lanka amid crisis as ire turns toward PM

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s president fled the country early on Wednesday, slipping away only hours before he promised to resign under pressure from protesters angry over a devastating economic crisis. But crowds quickly trained their ire on the prime minster, storming his office and demanding he also go.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife left aboard a Sri Lankan Air Force plane bound for the Maldives, the air force said in a statement. That brought little relief to the island nation gripped for months by an economic disaster that has triggered severe shortages of food and fuel — and now is beset by political chaos.

Thousands of protesters demanding that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also step down rallied outside his office compound and some scaled the walls, as the crowd roared its support, waving Sri Lankan flags and tossing water bottles to those heading inside. As protesters feared, Rajapaksa appointed his prime minister as acting president in his absence, according to the speaker of the Parliament.

The prime minister, whose whereabouts were unclear, declared a nationwide state of emergency.

“We need both … to go home,” said Supun Eranga, a 28-year-old civil servant in the crowd outside Wickremesinghe’s office. “Ranil couldn’t deliver what he promised during his two months, so he should quit. All Ranil did was try to protect the Rajapaksas.”

Police used tear gas to try to disperse the protesters but failed, and more and more marched down the lane and towards the prime minister’s office. As helicopters flew overhead, some demonstrators held up their middle fingers.

Some protesters who appeared to be unconscious were taken to a hospital.

Amid the chaos, state television stopped broadcasting, but it was not clear why.

While Rajapaksa agreed under pressure to resign on Wednesday, Wickremesinghe has said he would only leave once a new government was in place.

Protesters have already seized the president’s home and office and the official residence of the prime minister following months of demonstrations that have all but dismantled the Rajapaksa family’s political dynasty, which ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades.