Thousands of Sri Lankan Kiwis are struggling to contact their loved ones amid a deepening economic and political crisis in the island country.
It comes after the Sri Lankan government imposed a social media blackout over the weekend, effectively stifling free speech.
Meanwhile, fuel shortages have led to power cuts, with people getting electricity and the internet for just one hour a day. Food prices, too, have been doubling by the week while a critical paper shortage has seen school exams postponed.
One Sri Lankan New Zealander struggling to contact her loved ones is Chamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka, who told Breakfast, “I think it’s confusing, it’s worrying, it’s certainly scary”.
“This is something that’s been building for months and progressively, we’ve been becoming more and more worried and certainly, the weekend was the really pointy end of that.”
Sinhalage-Fonseka said the blackouts were also “certainly really worrying, both because we couldn’t get in touch as easily as we normally do, but at the same time, it’s a block on freedom of speech”.
“Sri Lanka’s not a country that really goes down that track particularly often – certainly not in my lifetime – so it’s doubly scary.”
She said she last spoke to her uncle several days ago, who said lives "have been disrupted" among all parts of society as a worsening food and fuel shortage takes hold.
"If you wind it back, this is a country that's been through 30-odd years of civil war and that has certainly coloured my childhood, and so it's a really resilient country and to have them anxious, I think, tells you a lot about what's happening there."
She said “classic political dynasties”, a “Fraken-system government” and a “’she’ll be right’ attitude to the rule of law” which took hold after Britain’s departure in 1948 has resulted in “this arbitrary chaos that’s happening in Sri Lanka”.
Overnight a state of medical emergency was declared as the country prepares to run out of items such as Panadol, catheters and surgical gloves in two weeks, she said.
“The doctors are saying ‘actually, the fuel crisis is bad because nothing can work; electricity crisis is bad because again, nothing can work – now we’re looking at a medicine shortage for a country of 22 million people.
“It’s just mess after mess after mess.”
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