Sri Lanka will not extend emergency as protests tail off

FILE PHOTO - People are silhouetted as they listen to a protester's speech at an anti-government rally to mark one month since a massive protest forced then Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and step down, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

COLOMBO (Reuters) -Sri Lanka's state of emergency imposed in the middle of last month will not be extended beyond this week, President Ranil Wickremesinghe's media office said on Tuesday, as protests against the country's economic devastation petered out.

Lawmakers voted Wickremesinghe in as president on July 20 after his predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled a popular uprising against months of acute shortages of fuel, food and medicine.