on July 20 a new president is elected

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who tried to leave the country by sea, is expected to resign tomorrow. Parliament will meet for the first consultations on July 15. The population continues to suffer from hunger: the World Food Program launched a project to provide food to 3 million people until December.

Colombo (Asia News) – On July 20, the national Parliament will elect a new president to replace Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The President of the Legislative Assembly, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, announced the news today: the deputies will hold an initial consultation on July 15 and then proceed to the election of a new head of state.

Meanwhile, part of the population continues to go hungry due to the economic crisis: in recent days, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) launched a project to assist 3 million people.

After the massive protests, with thousands of demonstrators occupying the presidential residence in the capital, Colombo, the opposition presented its proposals to form a government of national unity. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared that he will step down and his office confirmed the intention to resign Rajapaksa, who, according to the latest information, tried to leave the country by sea.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka continues to face its worst economic crisis since independence: inflation is 54% (in the case of food, it has already climbed above 57%), the national debt exceeds 50,000 million dollars and at the end of the year a loan of 28,000 million matures. Due to the shortage of foreign exchange, the country cannot import fuel and other essential products

To help the population, the UN agency for food assistance (WFP) has launched a project to provide food to three million people until December. According to a recent report by the organization, nearly 3 in 10 households (or 6.26 million people) are food insecure. In a country with a population of 22 million inhabitants, there are 65,600 people who suffer from severe food insecurity. The WFP plans to purchase “iron-fortified rice, pulses, oil and staple foods” that will arrive in the country “in August,” according to the report.

Food aid will give priority to “families that cannot buy food – increasingly expensive – and in particular those with children under five, pregnant and lactating women, and people with disabilities.”

So far, the organization has received $18.1 million from the governments of Australia, Japan and New Zealand; the figure represents about 28 per cent of its emergency appeal, which amounts to $63 million.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka had announced a default in mid-April. The population had been protesting for months in the capital, Colombo, and in other parts of the country, demanding the resignation of the government.