Sri Lanka protests met with tear gas and water cannons, as country on the brink of collapse

Anti-government protests continued across Sri Lanka on July 6, 2022, amid the country’s worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948. Young people and opposition supporters have been demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for months, whose attempts to save the economy have failed to end the country’s shortages. The annual national inflation rate jumped to a record high of 54.6 per cent in June, with the cost of food rising by more than 80 per cent.