Hi there,

If you think Democracy Now!’s reporting is a critical line of defense against war, climate catastrophe and authoritarianism, please make your donation of $10 or more right now. Today, a generous donor will DOUBLE your donation, which means it’ll go 2x as far to support our independent journalism. Democracy Now! is funded by you, and that’s why we’re counting on your donation to keep us going strong. Please give today. Every dollar makes a difference—in fact, gets doubled! Thank you so much.
-Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

President Rajapaksa Tries to Flee Sri Lanka as Calls for Criminal Charges Grow

HeadlineJul 12, 2022

In Sri Lanka, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has reportedly made a failed attempt to flee the country ahead of his resignation set for Wednesday. Agence France-Presse reports the president may now use a navy patrol boat to flee the island nation, which is facing a major economic crisis and saw thousands of protesters storm the president’s home Saturday and set fire to the prime minister’s residence. Rajapaksa is immune from arrest while he is still president, and may be trying to leave in order to avoid being detained. He is accused of war crimes during his time as defense minister and of bankrupting Sri Lanka with massive corruption and economic mismanagement that’s left millions of people with shortages of food, fuel and electricity. In the capital Colombo, restaurants used firewood to prepare meals on Monday.

Abdul Kasim: “We cook using wood. There is no cooking gas here. It has been 15 days, and the authorities said the cooking gas would be made available, but it has not arrived yet.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top