Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa resigns after months of protests

Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has submitted a letter of resignation, two government sources said on Friday, after he fled to Singapore following mass protests over his country’s economic meltdown.

Rajapaksa emailed a letter of resignation to the speaker of the country’s parliament late on Thursday, two sources said.

It was not immediately clear if the letter, sent shortly after Rajapaksa arrived in Singapore, would be accepted in email form, the sources added.

In commercial capital Colombo, troops patrolled the streets to enforce a curfew.

Rajapaksa, who fled to the Maldives on Wednesday to escape a popular uprising over his family’s role in a crippling economic crisis, headed on to Singapore on a Saudi Arabian airline flight, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The developments have left a power vacuum in the island nation as demonstrators continued to push for new leadership and have stormed and occupied the president and prime minister’s offices and residences.