Two Tibetan Buddhist monks and a young woman died in the latest of nearly 120 self-immolation protests in Tibetan areas of south-western China, reports said on Thursday.
Monks Lobsang Dawa, 20, and Konchog Woeser, 23, set fire to themselves early Wednesday evening at the Tagtsang Lhamo Kirti monastery in Ruo’ergai county, or Dzoege in Tibetan, in Sichuan province, London-based Free Tibet and US-based Radio Free Asia said.
The monks’ bodies were taken inside the monastery, where other monks held prayer ceremonies for them, the broadcaster quoted Indian-based exiled Tibetan monks with contacts in Sichuan as saying.
In a separate protest on Tuesday afternoon, a young Tibetan woman died after self-immolating in Sichuan’s Rangtang, or Dzamthang, county, the broadcaster said.
Tsering Woeser, a well-known Tibetan writer based in Beijing, reported on Twitter that the woman was a 23-year-old herder.
“All the Tibetans who resort to self-immolation do so because they feel they have no other way to make China and the world listen to their country’s call for freedom,” Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren said of the latest protests.
