Mangala Samaraweera, a former Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka and a prominent advocate of liberalism from the country’s dominant Sinhala-Buddhist polity, passed away at a private hospital in Colombo after treatment for COVID-19-related complications failed. He was 65.

According to reports, Samaraweera had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of a private hospital in capital Colombo last week after he contracted the virus. Local media quoting medical officers said Samaraweera had developed complications and suffered a cardiac arrest. He succumbed to the virus on Tuesday. Samaraweera, 65, had served as the Foreign Affairs Minister and Finance Minister in previous governments but stepped down from politics last year. At the time, he was a member of the opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya political party.

Sri Lanka is in the midst of a rapid third wave of pandemic which has infected 398,801 people to date and caused 7,750 deaths.

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