How Sri Lankan protests unfolded

Demonstrators protest inside the Presidential Secretariat premises, after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka July 9, 2022. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A deepening economic crisis in Sri Lanka sparked mass protests that forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country, leaving his successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to declare a state of emergency while seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

On Friday, a day after Wickremesinghe was sworn in, security forces launched a pre-dawn raid on a protest camp occupying government grounds in Colombo and cleared out a section of it.