Team News Riveting
Male, July 13
After failing to flee to the Arab nations, embattled Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa landed in neighbouring Maldives in the wee hours of Wednesday.
He had attempted to take a flight to Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Tuesday but the airport officials foiled the move. However, President Rajapaksa managed to flee Sri Lanka in the early hours of Wednesday and arrived in the neighboring Maldives, mere hours before he was due to step down from his post following the civilian uprising prompted by the island nation’s devastating economic crisis.
Reports said that Rajapaksa escaped in the middle of the night to Male City, the capital of Maldives, on an AN32 troop transport plane from the Sri Lanka Air Force. He was accompanied by his wife and two security personnel.
“Pursuant to the request of the government and in accordance with the powers vested in a President in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Air Force provided a plane early today to fly the President, his wife and two security officials to the Maldives,” Sri Lankan air force confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.
In Male, the local air traffic control refused the aircraft’s request to land until an intervention by Maldivian Parliament Speaker, former President Mohamed Nasheed – giving orders to permit the landing. No Maldivian authorities have issued official statements regarding President Rajapaksa’s arrival in the country.
Sources said Maldives could be the only part of a transit and he would most likely proceed to another country soon.
Following the news of President Rajapaksa’s departure, thousands of civilian protestors marched towards the Prime Minister’s office in Colombo in protest. They chanted and demanded neither the president nor the prime minister ‘be spared’. Sri Lankan Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said that Rajapaksa appointed the current prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe to serve as acting president in the interim — an arrangement that further enraged protesters who wanted Wickremesinghe out immediately.
Meanwhile, a protest has started at Carnival Area in Male’ City as Sri Lankans urged the authorities against letting President Rajapaksa take refuge in the Maldives. Some posters held by protestors read that President Rajapaksa had driven Sri Lanka into bankruptcy.
The police intervened and seized posters, forcing them to return. No violence was reported during this protest.
