COLOMBO: HG Indrani and her nine-person family travelled for an hour to a community kitchen in Colombo in search of a basic vegetarian dinner because they were out of gasoline and had no money for food.
In the midst of Sri Lanka’s biggest economic crisis since gaining independence from Britain in 1948, rampant food inflation and ongoing shortages of cooking gas and gasoline are making daily life difficult for millions of people.Indrani, one of hundreds of people waiting in the midday sun at a temporary kitchen hosted by a church, said, “There is no money.”
“Most of the time there is no food; we have been through a lot.”She stated that a kilogram of rice now costs 250 rupees instead of 90 rupees as it did six months ago. The 57-year-old continued, “There is no food at home.” “We shall endure greater suffering. We simply need to eat in order to live.”
Due to a gas scarcity in the area on the flat roof of the church close to Sri Lanka’s parliament, two dozen volunteers use open fires to cook over open flames while chopping onions, boiling rice, and scraping the flesh off coconuts.
