Sri Lanka sees scientists’ exodus amid economic crisis

ABSTRACT

The war in Ukraine only served to worsen the situation as Russia is Sri Lanka’s third biggest export market for tea and, together with Ukraine, are major sources of tourist arrivals. <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display inline-block;width 0px;overflow hidden;line-height 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> In April, the Rajapaksa government announced that it would default on payment to creditors totalling a staggering US$51 billion and begin a loan restructuring process. Vithanage, who is doing research on chronic kidney disease that affects farmers in remote rural areas, says it has become prohibitively expensive to do basic work, such as collecting water samples and talking to patients. “Initially, we cooked at our boarding house, but now we are forced to buy food from outside due to shortage of gas, but buying food outside is costly as prices doubled over a year,” says Madushika Sewwandi, a chemical technology graduate student from Matara, a town in southern Sri Lanka.