LONDON, April 11 -- 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 2,700 miles (4,345km) away, the government hiked fuel prices by 35 per cent 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 towards trouble as the energy imports on which they rely become more expensiv...