Sri Lanka's ousted president returns after fleeing

Sri Lanka's former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has returned to the country after seven weeks. Rajapaksa flew into Colombo's international airport around midnight Friday from Bangkok via Singapore.

For months, Sri Lanka has been in the grips of its worst economic crisis, which triggered extraordinary protests and unprecedented public rage that ultimately forced Rajapaksa and his brother, the former prime minister, to step down.

The situation in the bankrupt country was made worse by global factors like the pandemic and Russia's military operation of Ukraine, but many hold the once-powerful Rajapaksa family as responsible for severely mismanaging the economy and tipping it into crisis.