Sri Lanka protesters withdraw from presidential buildings and the president arrives in Singapore
Sri Lankan protesters withdrew Thursday from the presidential buildings they stormed a few days ago, vowing to continue to put pressure on the prime minister and the country's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who arrived in Singapore on a Saudi Airlines plane.
Witnesses saw dozens of people leaving the Prime Minister's office on Thursday, while armed members of the security forces were entering it.
Armored vehicles transporting troops were patrolling some neighborhoods of the capital, where a curfew was imposed.
A short time ago, a spokeswoman for the protesters said, "We will withdraw peacefully from the presidential palace, the presidential secretariat and the prime minister's office immediately, but we will continue our struggle."
Hours earlier, the police had confronted protesters who had tried to enter Parliament.
Protesters on Wednesday stormed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's residence after storming the presidential palace on Saturday, forcing the president to flee the country.
About 85 people were injured during the confrontations, and a man suffocated with tear gas.
Hundreds of thousands of people have visited the presidential palace since it was opened to the public after the president fled Saturday.
On Thursday afternoon, the doors to the building were closed and armed men guarded them.
The army and police received new orders Thursday to exercise strict repression against any acts of violence and warned rioters that their members were "legitimately authorized to exercise their power."
After a day's layover in the Maldives, Rajpaksa arrived in Singapore on Thursday with his wife Ayuma and two bodyguards on a Saudi Arabian Airlines commercial flight, escorted to her a few minutes before takeoff.
Rajapaksa had asked, according to Maldivian media, to take a private plane, refusing to travel on a commercial flight with other passengers due to the hostile reception he received upon his arrival in the Maldives on Wednesday.
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