Before Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed, 50-year-old Nazir would spend scorching hot days hauling carts packed with rolls of fabric, stacks of coconuts and sacks of garlic through the narrow streets of Colombo’s Pettah market. Now, wearing a black cap, T-shirt and grey trousers, Nazir sits idle in front of dozens of empty carts, listening to speeches on his mobile phone. He turns up the volume and points to the screen: “Aragalaya!,” referring to Sri Lanka’s popular revolt that ousted its president last week. On a good day, Nazir used to make the equivalent of $8, just about enough to feed his family of six, for which he is the breadwinner. “Now, the business is dead,” he said. If he gets no more work today, he will go back home with less than a dollar in his pocket.
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Sri Lanka’s economic collapse has been blamed on former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who flew to Singapore after initially fleeing the country on a military jet to the Maldives as a wave of protests rocked the island nation. Demonstrators were furious at the president for borrowing heavily to build Chinese-backed projects and his eccentric policymaking, which included a ban on fertiliser imports. Erratic economic management was compounded by a drop in tourism revenue because of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which caused Sri Lanka to default and sent its currency tumbling. Sri Lanka, which has run out of foreign currency, has experienced severe fuel shortages, leading to kilometres-long queues for petrol © Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images Sri Lanka’s debt pile stands at $51bn, just over half of which is owed to bilateral and multilateral lenders including China. The economic fallout has had devastating consequences. “My family is skipping meals,” said Nazir. “At dinner, we share pieces of bread with coconut sambal. I use firewood to cook because there is no fuel and no kerosene.” Stories like Nazir’s reverberate across the Pettah market, which used to be a teeming maze of clothing boutiques and stalls selling everything from the latest electronics and dish washing liquid to spices and coffee.
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