Tibetan sources tell VOA that two men have died after setting themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibetan regions of China.
The two men, a monk and a former monk, carried out the self-immolation protest on Monday on a street in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of central China's Sichuan province.
An India-based spokesman for the Kirti monastery of Tibetan Buddhism said Chinese authorities informed family members that the two men were taken to a hospital in Barkham county and died of their injuries. A resident of the Chinese region who spoke to VOA confirmed that account.
The self-immolations happened near the Ngaba county branch of the Kirti monastery, which follows the Gelug school of Buddhism of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.
The sources said one of the men, Lungtok, was a monk at the monastery, while the other, Tashi, was a former monk and classmate of Lungtok. They said the two men, who were in their early 20s, set themselves on fire as they chanted anti-government slogans on a major road known to locals as "Martyrs Street" in honor of other ethnic Tibetans who have died in self-immolations.
