Sri Lankan security forces raided and partially cleared a protest camp occupying government grounds in Colombo early on Friday, fuelling fears that President Ranil Wickremesinghe had launched a crackdown a day after being sworn in. Media footage showed soldiers in riot gear and armed with assault rifles tearing down the camp, set up in April by protesters enraged by the country's economic collapse and acute shortages of fuel, food and medicine.

WICKREMESINGHE, a six-time prime minister, was sworn in as president on Thursday after winning a parliamentary vote to succeed Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled to Singapore last week in the wake of massive public protests triggered by the country’s worst economic crisis in seven decades.