How Sri Lanka's 2022 economic crisis hit daily life

This woman from Wanathamulla, a neighborhood near the capital Colombo, is struggling to feed her three children and grandchild. Her husband left her after a cooking gas explosion left her injured. She has no steady income and tries to keep the family afloat by doing casual jobs. Even basic foodstuffs like rice have become almost unaffordable for millions of Sri Lankan families.

Nilanthi Gunasekera, 49, poses with a handful of dried fish. "Before the economic crisis, we ate well and we served meat or fish to our kids at least three or four times a week. Now fish is out of the reach of our family and so is meat," she said.

Gamage Rupawathi (right), 60, used to have her own fruit shop in Colombo, which enabled her to provide well for herself, her husband (center) and her son (left). But due to the long lockdowns during the COVID pandemic, she had to close the shop. Now, amid the economic crisis, she lacks the money to reopen her business.

On some days, this is the only meal for Gamage Rupawathi's husband. More than a quarter of the island nation's 22 million inhabitants currently have difficulty securing two square meals a day.

Manel Peiris, a heart patient, is struggling to afford her medication. Earlier, the 68-year-old used to regularly receive three-month supplies of medicine from a public hospital. "Now we have to buy them from pharmacies, costing 3,400 rupees (€9.5, $9.5) a month, which I can't afford. So I am only buying for a week at a time. Sometimes my husband has to borrow money or ask for a wage advance."

"We have a tap water connection but it's very difficult to pay water and electricity bills, in addition to the rising costs of food. So now I bathe at a public well more often in order to save money," said Sivaraja Sanjeewan, a 31-year-old auto-rickshaw driver.

Priyani Dhammika, 53, makes so-called betel stacks to chew. They consist of crushed areca nuts wrapped in tobacco leaves. "Business is very difficult now," she said. The price of the nuts has tripled and the leaves have become as much as eight times more expensive, she added.

Since thieves stole their gas tank and stove, 62-year-old Vidyathipathige Nihal and his family have been forced to cook over an open fire. The demand for firewood has risen sharply due to the shortage of gas — as has the price.

This former soldier said he can no longer live on his veteran's pension due to high inflation, and he's not expecting government financial support. Sri Lanka secured a staff-level agreement for a $2.9 billion (€2.8 billion) bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this month, but "this is only the beginning of a long road out of the crisis for Sri Lanka," said an IMF spokesman.