
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's president fled the country early Wednesday, slipping away only hours before he promised to resign under pressure from protesters angry over a devastating economic crisis. But crowds quickly trained their ire on the prime minster, storming his office and demanding he also go.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife left aboard a Sri Lankan Air Force plane bound for the Maldives, the air force said in a statement. That brought little relief to the island nation gripped for months by an economic disaster that has triggered severe shortages of food and fuel — and now is beset by political chaos.