COLOMBO, May 15 (Agencies): A nationwide curfew was fully lifted on Sunday to allow Sri Lankans to celebrate the Buddhist festival of Vesak, while new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesin-ghe assembled a cabinet to resolve the island nation's economic and political crisis.
The curfew was imposed on May 9 after deadly clashes that forced Mahinda Rajapaksa to resign as premier, leaving his brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to rule on as president.
The celebrations were muted as the island nation's new premier struggled to find his footing and tackle a worsening economic crisis.
New prime minister Wickremesinghe, 73, held discussions with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, his office said in a statement on Sunday.
"The discussions with the organizations focused on assistance for the issues facing the supply of medicine, food and fertiliser," the statement said.
Wickremesinghe, who has previously led the country five times, made his first cabinet appointments on Saturday.
As the only lawmaker from his United National Party in the country's parliament, he is reliant on support from the Rajapaksas' Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna to form a government.
Saturday's four cabinet appointments, who were all from the Rajapaksas' party, have failed to satisfy protesters, who want the family removed from national politics.
A countrywide stay-home order has been in place for most of the week after mob violence left nine dead and over 225 wounded, sparked by attacks on peaceful demonstrators by government loyalists.
Protesters across the Buddhist-majority nation have for weeks demanded the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over Sri Lanka's worst-ever economic crisis.
Shortages of food, fuel and medicines, along with record inflation and lengthy blackouts, have brought severe hardships to the country's 22 million people.
Sunday marks Vesak, the most important religious event on Sri Lanka's calendar, which celebrates Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death.
The government has declared a two-day holiday and announced it was lifting the curfew for the day without saying when or whether it would be reimposed.
But the ongoing crisis prompted the government to cancel its plans to celebrate the festival, which had been scheduled at a temple in the island's south.
"Given the economic situation of the government and other constraints, we are not having this year's state festival at the Kuragala temple as planned," a Buddhist Affairs ministry official told AFP.
The official said Buddhists were free to hold their own celebrations, including the mass meditation and Buddhist sermons traditionally organised during the festival.
Worshippers usually set up soup kitchens, lanterns and "pandal" bamboo stages bearing large paintings depicting stories from Buddha's life.
But Sri Lanka has been unable to properly stage Vesak for years, with the Easter Sunday attacks dampening celebrations in 2019 and the last two years affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
