Lankan town under curfew after police kill protester

RAMBUKKANA, April 20 (AFP): Police enforced a curfew on Wednesday in a Sri Lankan town where an anti-government demonstrator was killed, a death that triggered international condemnation just as the crisis-hit country seeks an IMF bailout.
Regular blackouts and acute shortages of food and fuel have sparked increasing public discontent in the island nation, which is dealing with its worst economic downturn since independence in 1948.
Huge protests have demanded the government's resignation, including the Tuesday blockade of a key highway and railway line on the day Sri Lanka's main petrol retailer announced another sudden price rise.
Police dispersed the crowd in the town of Rambukkana with tear gas and a volley of live rounds that left a 42-year-old father of two dead, with nearly 30 others wounded in the confrontation.
"I was hit with a baton on my leg and hand," Vasantha Kumara, a local chef, told AFP on Wednesday. "I begged the cops not to beat me, but they didn't listen."
"People are angry. We are all poor people fighting for basics."
Authorities extended the curfew in Rambukkana, around 95 kilometres (60 miles) east of the capital Colombo, into Wednesday with shops closed through the morning.