[Soldiers guard a service station where people wait to get fuel in Colombo as Sri Lanka grapples with its worst economic meltdown in over seven decades. (Photo by=AFP/Ishara S Kodikara)]

COLOMBO: Two major Sri Lanka newspapers are suspending their print editions because of a lack of paper, their owner said Friday (Mar 25), the latest casualties in the island's economic crisis. The South Asian nation of 22 million people is facing its worst economic meltdown since independence from Britain in 1948 after its foreign reserves hit rock bottom, AFP reported.
 
Privately owned Upali Newspapers said their English-language daily, The Island, and its sister Sinhalese version, Divaina, will only be available online "in view of the prevailing newsprint shortage". Other main national dailies have also reduced pages after costs soared by over a third in the past five months and because of difficulties securing supplies from abroad. School tests for nearly 3 million out of Sri Lanka's 4.5 million pupils were postponed indefinitely last week after the authorities failed to source enough paper and ink.
 
The dollar shortage has sparked energy shortages affecting all sectors and led to skyrocketing prices with inflation at a record 17.5 percent in February, the fifth consecutive monthly high. Sri Lanka needs nearly US$7 billion to service its external debt this year while the country's foreign reserves have hit US$2.3 billion, down from US$7.5 billion when the current government came to power in November 2019.