Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has instructed the military and police to do ‘what is necessary’ to ‘restore order’ in the country.  This is coming after days of restiveness and demonstrations by citizens who are demanding  the resignation of the democratic government.

Protesters defied tear gas, water cannons and a state of emergency to storm the building today after the president fled the country, with the crowd demanding both men step down.

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.

But that only appeared to only further spur on the protesters in the island country which has been gripped for months by an economic meltdown that has triggered severe shortages of food and fuel.

The Prime Minister responded by declaring a state of emergency, giving broader powers to the military and police and ordering them to crack down on the unrest at any cost.

Footage showed armed security personnel standing by in the grounds of Wickremesinghe’s office as protesters, some holding national flags, milled and took pictures. Some tried to break down the gates leading to the office buildings with a make-shift ram.

Sri Lanka’s defense chief General Shavendra Silva said: ‘We have requested political leaders to decide the way forward till a new president is sworn in and notify us and the public by this evening.’

Rajapaksa had promised to resign and said he would clear the way for a ‘peaceful transition of power’, after fleeing his official residence in Colombo just before tens of thousands of protesters overran it.

The storming of both of the prime ministerial and presidential offices was a dramatic culmination of months of unrest in Sri Lanka with experts predicting more protests to rock the country in the coming months.