“Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa left the Maldives on a Saudi Airlines flight to Singapore,” a Male airport spokesman said a day after fleeing the Maldives for Colombo Atoll.

The official indicated that Rajapaksa, his wife Yuma and two of their bodyguards were taken to the plane minutes before departure from Velana International Airport in Male, the capital of the Maldives.

Anti-government protesters in Sri Lanka who stormed the home of President Gotabai Rajapaksa over the weekend announced they would leave the stormed presidential buildings. In this regard, the representative of the demonstrators said: “We will immediately withdraw peacefully from the presidential palace, the presidential secretariat and the prime minister’s office, but we will continue our struggle.”

Sri Lankan authorities have declared a state of emergency after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives without submitting his resignation amid renewed protests calling for better economic and housing conditions.