A young Tibetan set himself ablaze and died in Sichuan’s Ngaba county on Nov. 4 in a protest challenging Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, Tibetan sources said on Thursday.
Dopo, 23, shouted slogans calling for the long life of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama before he died, two monks living in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service, citing contacts in the region.
“Dopo came from Jakorma village in the Choejema area of [Ngaba] county,” Kanyak Tsering and Losang Yeshe, monks living at Kirti monastery in India, an exile branch of Kirti monastery in Tibet, said.
“His father’s name is Chopa, and his mother, Trinle Kyi, passed away a few years ago,” Tsering and Yeshe said. “He had been living at the house of his uncle.”
It is not known if Chinese police took Dopo’s body away, and no information was immediately available on the situation of his surviving family members, Tsering and Yeshe said.
Dopo’s protest brings to 154 the number of self-immolations by Tibetans since the wave of fiery protests against Chinese rule of their homeland began in 2009.
It is the 41st confirmed in Ngaba so far, and follows the March 7, 2018 self-immolation of Ngaba resident and father of two Tsekho Tukchak.
Ngaba’s main town and nearby Kirti monastery have been the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests in recent years by monks, former monks, and other Tibetans calling for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lama’s return.
Reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.