Scarred countries counting the cost

Drivers wait in a line to refuel their auto rickshaws in Biyagama on the outskirts of Colombo on March 15
By Marc Jones, Uditha Jayasinghe and Ariba Shahid
REUTERS
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LONDON/COLOMBO/ISLAMABAD –
Sanoj Weeratunge thought this would finally be the year his tour firm put Sri Lanka's spate of crises behind it
Then the Iran war erupted 4,300 kilometers away, the government hiked fuel prices by 35% and business slumped almost a third."We have had a very difficult road over the past six years to recover and were very hopeful that this would finally be the year where ​we reach pre-COVID levels," Weeratunge said from his office in Colombo
"But now this economic shock will affect us."Sri Lanka, like Egypt and Pakistan, ‌belongs to ‌a group of crisis-scarred, lower-income countries that analysts fear have been thrust back toward trouble as the energy imports on ​which they rely become more expensive due to the war.

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