President flees Sri Lanka amid crisis and ire turns to PM

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s president fled the country early Wednesday, slipping away only hours before he promised to resign under pressure from protesters enraged by a devastating economic crisis. But the crowds quickly trained their ire on the prime minister, storming his office and demanding he also go.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife left aboard an air force plane bound for the Maldives — and he made his prime minister the acting president in his absence. That appeared to only further roil passions in the island nation, which has been gripped for months by an economic disaster that has triggered severe shortages of food and fuel — and now is beset by political chaos.

Thousands of protesters — who had anticipated that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe would be appointed acting president — rallied outside his office compound and some scaled the walls, as the crowd roared its support and tossed water bottles to those charging in.

Dozens could later be seen inside the office and standing on a rooftop terrace waving Sri Lanka's flag — the latest in a series of government buildings demonstrators have occupied in their quest for new leaders.

“We need both ... to go home,” said Supun Eranga, a 28-year-old civil servant in the crowd. “Ranil couldn’t deliver what he promised during his two months, so he should quit. All Ranil did was try to protect the Rajapaksas.”

But Wickremesinghe, who declared a state of emergency, appeared on television to reiterate that he would not leave until a new government was in place — and it was not clear when that would happen. Although he fled, Rajapaksa has yet to resign, but the speaker of the parliament said the president assured him he would later in the day.

Police initially used tear gas to try to disperse the...