Sri Lanka PM Mahinda Rajapaksa resigns as crisis worsens

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has resigned after protests over the island nation’s worsening economic crisis turned deadly.
In a statement on Monday, his office said he was quitting in order to help form an interim, unity government, following weeks of often violent protests across the country over spiraling prices and shortages of fuel and other vital imports.
Earlier, a government official said Rajapaksa, who has dominated Sri Lankan politics for nearly 20 years and whose government crushed the Tamil Tigers to bring an end to a long civil war, has sent his letter of resignation to the president.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the prime minister’s younger brother.

Al Jazeera’s Laura Burdon-Manley has the latest.

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