Fleeing Sri Lankan president lands in Singapore after breaking promise to resign

Fleeing Sri Lankan president lands in Singapore after breaking promise to resign

A flight believed to be carrying fleeing Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan president, landed in Singapore on Thursday. The arrivals board at the airport showed the plane had arrived. Mr Rajapaksa and his wife fled to the Maldives early on Wednesday aboard an air force plane amid mass protests demanding he resign over his country's economic collapse. A Maldives government official earlier said Mr Rajapaksa had boarded a flight of the Saudi Arabian carrier Saudia from the Maldives' capital, Male, bound for Singapore. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. It was unclear if Mr Rajapaksa planned to stay there or travel on to another destination. It comes as Sri Lankan protesters began to retreat from government buildings they had seized and military troops reinforced security at the Parliament on Thursday, establishing a tenuous calm in a country in both economic meltdown and political limbo. Mr Rajapaksa fled a day earlier under pressure from protesters furious over the island nation's economic collapse. But he failed to resign as promised, and further angered the crowds by making his prime minister acting leader. Protesters want both men out and a unity government in to address