‘We will not leave the country’

Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapaksa -- who resigned as prime minister after his supporters attacked anti-government protesters and sparked a day of violence -- will not flee the country, his son MP Namal Rajapaksa told AFP on Tuesday.

He said the Rajapaksa family had no plans to leave Sri Lanka despite weeks of protests demanding they relinquish power.

“There are a lot of rumours that we are going to leave. We will not leave the country,” he said, describing the surge of national anger against his family as a “bad patch”.

He added that Mahinda Rajapaksa would not step down as a lawmaker and wanted to play an active role in choosing his successor.

The former prime minister was taken to an undisclosed location after protesters on Monday night breached the compound fence at Temple Trees, his official residence in the capital Colombo.

“My father is safe, he is at a safe location and he is communicating with the family,” the former sports minister was quoted as saying by AFP.

Weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful protests against the government’s mismanagement of the crisis turned violent on Monday when supporters of Mahinda Rajapaksa had attacked demonstrators outside Temple Trees.

Anti-government crowds defied a nationwide curfew to retaliate against government supporters for the attacks late into the night.

Namal said his family believed that Sri Lankans had a right to protest.

“We will always stand by our people,” he added.