Restaurants all over Sri Lanka have been forced to close down as a result of a gas shortage, leaving as many as 500,000 employees without a job.

Sri Lanka's cabinet of ministers approved a proposal to issue death or missing person certificates to disappeared persons and pay a 100,000 LKR one time allowance to their next of kin.

Foreign Secretary of Sri Lanka Admiral Jayanath Colombage denied that the genocide of Tamils took place in a press conference on Tuesday. 

Speaking to journalists at the Presidential Media Centre in Colombo, Colombage said; 

“Accusations that a genocide took place in Sri Lanka are baseless and it never took place.” 

As Sri Lanka’s economic crisis continues to worsen, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced that he would work with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after numerous statements rejecting a potential bailout.

“This crisis was not created by me” insisted President Rajapaksa during his statement. It follows riotous protests outside the Presidential Secretariat over the economic crisis. These protests were led by Sri Lana’s opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. During the rally, Premadasa demanded a snap Presidential election.

Sri Lanka will enforce another 3 hour 15-minute power outage across parts of the island as the fuel crisis deepens. 

Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa and Secretary to the Ministry left for India on Tuesday to seek a USD $1 billion credit facility from India, to import food, essential items and medicine.

The trip comes as officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visit the Island to hold talks with the Rajapaksa regime to discuss the current economic crisis. Last week the IMF released a summary of their Article IV consultation which stressed the need for the government to implement a strategy to deal with 'Unsustainable levels' of debt. 

State Minister of Regional Co-operation Tharaka Balasuriya, has said that a prolonged war in Ukraine will have an 'astronomical' on Sri Lanka. 

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka announced that it would allow 'greater flexibility in the exchange rate', allowing the Sri Lankan rupee to be exchanged at 230 per dollar, from its previous fixed rate of 201, effectively weakening the currency. 

Thousands of opposition protesters broke out in Colombo, with demonstrators attempting to storm the President’s Secretariat office, as the country’s economy continues to plummet.

A senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official is set to visit Sri Lanka on Monday and Tuesday to brief President Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the country continues to struggle with its economic crisis and refuses to request a bailout from the IMF.