Flying fists and pelted bottles – warring politicians shock Sri Lanka

As an unstable coalition falls apart, MPs are resisting the return of former strongman president Mahinda Rajapaksa

In 1987 grenades ripped through Sri Lanka's parliament, killing two people and narrowly missing the country's president and prime minister.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, who until three weeks ago occupied the prime minister's office, had been in the building that day, he reminded journalists on Friday. "I've been here when a bomb was thrown," he said. Even so, the scenes in Sri Lanka's parliament this past week have been shocking, he said. "This is the breaking-up of parliament by a group of people claiming to be the government."

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