Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has announced he will step down after protesters stormed his official residence and set the prime minister's house on fire, reported BBC. 

 

Neither the PM nor the president were in the buildings at the time.

 

Hundreds of thousands descended on the capital Colombo, calling for Rajapaksa to resign after months of protests over economic mismanagement.

 

He will step down on July 13. PM Wickremesinghe has agreed to resign.

 

The speaker of parliament said the president decided to step down "to ensure a peaceful handover of power" and called on the public to "respect the law". The announcement triggered an eruption of celebratory fireworks in the city, it stated.

 

After Saturday's events, the United States appealed to the Sri Lankan leadership to act promptly to resolve the country's economic crisis.

 

Sri Lanka's powerful neighbour India said it stands with the people of Sri Lanka, "as they seek to realise their aspirations for prosperity and progress through democratic means and values, established institutions and constitutional framework", reported Times of India.

 

The ministry of external affairs said that this year, India has extended an unprecedented support of over $3.8 billion for "ameliorating the serious economic situation in Sri Lanka". 

 

"We continue to follow closely the recent developments in Sri Lanka," the ministry stated.

 

Amid all this chaos, the embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose location is still unknown since the protesters overran both his office and the official residence, has ordered officials to ensure the smooth distribution of cooking gas after the fuel-starved country received 3,700 metric tonnes of LP gas, his office said on Sunday. 

 

Meanwhile, leaders of the protest movement in Sri Lanka who have forced the president and prime minister out of their official residences said on Sunday they will occupy the buildings until the two quit office.

 

In recent months people have been blocking roads across the country in a desperate bid to force the government to address the issue of acute gas shortages.

 

One protester, Fiona Sirmana, who was demonstrating at the president's house, said it was time "to get rid of the president and the prime minister and to have a new era for Sri Lanka".

 

Dozens of people were injured in Saturday's protests, and a spokesperson for Colombo's main hospital told AFP news agency that three people were being treated for gunshot wounds.

 

Sri Lanka is suffering rampant inflation and is struggling to import food, fuel and medicine amid the country's worst economic crisis in 70 years.

 

It has run out of foreign currency and has had to impose a ban on sales of petrol and diesel for private vehicles, leading to days-long queues for fuel.