Sri Lanka president brings back five-time former PM in effort to ease crisis

Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed to lead unity government' after days of deadly violence

Sri Lanka's beleaguered president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has sworn in a new prime minister to replace his brother as the country reels from days of violence.

The new PM, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has held the post five times before, will head up a unity government" tasked with finding a way out of Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis since independence, with severe shortages of food, fuel and medicines and long power cuts.