‘We’re finished’: Sri Lankans pushed to the brink by financial crisis

, with food, fuel, medicine and electricity becoming increasingly scarce, and calls for the president Gotabaya Rajapaksa – frequently referred to as Gota – to step down, 50-year-old Upul, who lives in a poor northern suburb of the city, is among those who have been pushed to the brink of survival.

But nowhere can the seismic shift in the country be felt more than out on the streets. In recent weeks,have taken place across the country, driven not by an organised movement but fuelled instead by a collective rage at the politicians they blame for driving their country into the ground, leading to many describing it as “Sri Lanka’s Arab spring”.Photograph: Chamila Karunarathne/EPA

“The way people from all communities are coming out onto the streets, I have never seen it before,” he said. “And it’s happening organically, there’s no mastermind or political party behind all of this. It’s very youth-driven but you’ve got middle-class people, elderly people, wealthy businessmen, families, people who have never protested before.”

But his government’s devastating economic decisions since taking power – including scrapping austerity measures when he came into power, cutting taxes to just 8% of GDP, printing vast amounts of money pushing up inflation, refusing to restructure the country’s mounting foreign debt and using up all the foreign reserves – have now made him the most derided man in Sri Lankan politics. The rallying cry of the protests has been “Gota go home”, a reference to his previous dual US citizenship.

Charu, a 24-year-old student, also voiced his anger at the Rajapaksa dynasty, who have ruled Sri Lanka on and off since 2002. “This is all the fault of the Rajapaksas, with their poisonous nationalism and bad governance,” he said. “People are starving, we are in terrible debt because of him and we can’t even turn the lights on. But he is not taking responsibility.” Like many around him, Charu shook his head woefully when speaking of the future. “I have no hope,” he said.

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