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Sri Lanka’s central bank has secured foreign exchange to pay for fuel and cooking gas shipments that will ease crippling shortages, its governor said on Thursday, but police fired tear gas and water cannon to push back student protesters.
Most of Sri Lanka’s petrol stations have run dry as the island nation battles its most devastating economic crisis since independence in 1948. At some pumps in the commercial capital, Colombo, dozens of people stood in lines holding plastic jerry cans, as troops in combat gear and armed with assault rifles patrolled the streets. Traffic was extremely light.
Residents said most people were staying at home because of the lack of transport. Hundreds of students carrying black flags marched on Colombo’s central Fort area, chanting slogans against the government. Police fired repeated rounds of tear gas and water cannon to push them back, according to a Reuters witness.
Central bank Governor P Nandalal Weerasinghe told a news conference adequate dollars had been released to pay for fuel and cooking gas shipments, utilising in part $130 million received from the World Bank and remittances from Sri Lankans working overseas.
He was speaking after the central bank held interest rates steady at a policy meeting, citing a massive 7 percentage point increase in April that it said was working its way through the system.
