Gotabaya Rajapaksa departs on the day he was expected to resign in the face of mass protestsPresident Gotabaya Rajapaksa has fled Sri Lanka on a military aircraft for the Maldives, according to the country’s air force, leaving behind a deepening economic and political crisis in the island nation on the day he was expected to resign in the face of mass protests.
The 73-year-old leader was forced to offer his resignation on Saturday by a street revolt in which tens of thousands of protesters angered by rising prices and shortages of fuel and food converged on Colombo, the commercial capital, and over-ran the presidential palace.