Sri Lanka’s main city, Colombo, was calm on Thursday as people waited for the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, although a curfew was imposed and troops patrolled the streets to prevent any outbreak of violence. Rajapaksa, who fled to the Maldives on Wednesday to escape a popular uprising over his family’s role in a crippling economic crisis, later emailed his resignation to the speaker of Sri Lanka’s parliament. His decision on Wednesday to make his ally Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the acting president triggered more protests, with demonstrators storming parliament and premier’s office demanding  he quit too.

PM not wanted too

“We want Ranil to go home,” Malik Perera, a 29-year-old rickshaw driver who said he took part in the parliament protests, said on Thursday. “They have sold the country, we want a good person to take over, until then we won’t stop.”