Updated 0722 GMT

A state of emergency is to be declared across Sri Lanka and a curfew has been imposed in the western province, as protestors marched to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office this morning.

There are reports that the Sri Lankan security forces have fired tear gas at the protestors, as military helicopters have been circling over the prime minister’s office.

Although President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is yet to officially resign, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office reportedly said the prime minister will step in as “acting president" where he will declare a state of emergency.

Sri Lankan protestors overran the offices of the prime minister in Colombo on Wedneday, and demanded the resignation of acting President, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has taken office after Sri Lanka's President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country.

Director-General of Sri Lanka’s Archaeology Department, Professor Anura Manatungm, has pledged to take steps to protect the residence of the embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and threatened legal action against potential looters.

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Joly, stressed the need for urgent political and economic reform in Sri Lanka.

Referring to the protests on 9 July, Joly tweeted that “Canada supports a peaceful, constitutional path forward that supports urgent action on economic and political reform.”

Writing in Foreign Policy, Neil Devotta, professor of international affairs at Wake Forest University, explains that “the roots of the current crisis lie with ethnocracy” which has led a country from meritocracy to kakistocracy – governance by a country’s worst citizens.

Quoting a Sri Lankan newspaper, Devotta writes, “drug dealers, fraudsters, murderers, rapists, bootleggers and cattle rustlers’ control politics, and they have bankrupted a country with so much potential”.

Updated 2315 GMT

Sri Lankan officials have confirmed that besieged president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has landed in the Maldives on a military flight, as he flees the island on his second confirmed attempt in as many days.

The latest confirmed attempt comes amidst unconfirmed reports that a military flight carrying Rajapaksa was reportedly seen taking off in the early hours of the morning from Colombo. The accused war criminal president, his wife and a bodyguard were all aboard an Antonov-32 military aircraft.

Leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), Sajith Premadasa, has announced that he intends to run for the Presidency once Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigns.

The SJB holds 50 members in parliament and will require the support of 113 MPs to secure the position.

The Indian government has refused to let Sri Lanka’s Gotabaya Rajapaksa land at a civilian airport in the country using an air force jet reports SBS Sinhala, as the embattled president reportedly searches for a way to flee the island.

According to SBS, “the Indian government refused to allow a Sri Lankan air force AN32, carrying the president, to land at an Indian civilian airport”.

The US embassy has reportedly denied embattled Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa a visitor's visa to enter the country, after reports that he attempted to flee the island last night.

“It was made very clear to him that there will be no visa for him,” a representative from the US embassy in Colombo reportedly told SBS Sinhala.

Sri Lanka's embattled president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was left stuck on the island, after airport staff blocked his attempts to flee the country in yet another humiliating blow to the accused war criminal.

The 73-year-old former defence secretary was reportedly trying to flee the country before he is scheduled to step down on Wednesday, and lose immunity as a head of state that protects him from prosecution for a range of crimes. He reportedly fears being arrested and placed on trial where he could face prosecution for his financial crimes, as well as his genocide of Tamils.