People Flee Bankrupt Sri Lanka as Inflation Rate Nears 60 Percent

The photo shows Sri Lankan protestors in April 2022. (Photo courtesy of AntanO, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says the island nation is bankrupt. He does not expect an immediate bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The inflation rate will soon reach 60 percent.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe says he can turn Sri Lanka’s economy around, promising a tough 2023 but improvements in 2024.

As the prices for food, fuel, and medicine increase, many Sri Lankans try to escape by boat to India or Australia. Several refugees have landed in India so far, and are being kept in a refugee camp.

Adrian De Visser with Asian Access says people have lined up for days in order to get fuel. “Yesterday, there was a report about a man who had lined up for gas [who] was living in the car for five days. He had died, and nobody knew that he died inside his own car.”

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SOURCE: Mission Network News, Kevin Zeller

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