In her outstretched palms, 49-year-old Nilanthi Gunasekera holds her family’s last remaining handful of dried fish — a reminder of Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in decades.
She is just one of the millions of Sri Lankans battling a calamitous decline in living standards, as they find themselves forced to skip meals, ration out medicines and turn to firewood in place of cooking gas.
"Now fish is out of the reach of our family, and so is meat," Gunasekera said, grasping the shards of fish. "For two weeks we couldn’t afford any meat or fish. This is our last protein."