Two Tibetan Women Die After Self-Immolation

Two Tibetan women killed themselves by self-immolation in two different Tibetan regions of western China over the weekend, according to reports by Tibetan exile groups and Radio Free Asia, which is financed by the United States government. Those two deaths bring to at least 24 the number of Tibetans who have set fire to themselves in western China since March 2011; at least 16 of those have died. The Radio Free Asia report said that Rinchen, a 32-year-old widow and mother of three, killed herself by self-immolation on Sunday in front of Kirti Monastery in the town of Aba, known in Tibetan as Ngaba. A report by Free Tibet, an advocacy group, said Rinchen had four children. On Saturday, a woman who attends a middle school in Maqu County in Gansu Province set fire to herself in a vegetable market, Radio Free Asia reported. On Monday, the Tibetan Women’s Association, an exile advocacy group, identified the woman who killed herself was Tsering Kyi, age 19, while Free Tibet said she was age 20. The group said the two self-immolations were the first by Tibetan laywomen in Tibet’s history. Previously, nuns or former nuns had set fire to themselves.