Girl, woman die after self-immolation
2012-03-05 11:55
Beijing - A Tibetan teenage girl and a widowed mother died after separate self-immolations in restive areas of western China, reports said on Monday, following 22 other self-immolations in Tibetan areas of China in recent months.
The unidentified girl from the Tibetan Middle School in Maqu county town, or Machu in Tibetan, in Gansu province set fire to herself on Saturday at a market, US-based Radio Free Asia said.
Police took away the girl's body after Han Chinese vendors called them to the market, the broadcaster quoted a Tibetan exile with contacts in Maqu as saying.
Teenagers from the Tibetan Middle School had previously protested government controls on Tibetans and police had detained several students, it said.
On Sunday, a 32-year-old Tibetan woman died after setting fire to herself in Aba town, known as Ngaba in Tibetan, in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, the London-based campaign Free Tibet said.
The woman, identified by the single name Rinchen, self-immolated near a police station at the main gate of the Kirti monastery, the group said.
It said Rinchen, a widowed mother of four children, shouted slogans in support of freedom for Tibet and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's highest spiritual leader.
Monks and lay Tibetans took Rinchen's body into the monastery, reports said.
- SAPA
