Tibetan schoolboy who set himself alight dies in India

NEW DELHI: A Tibetan schoolboy living in India has died four days after setting himself on fire to protest Chinese rule, the hospital treating him said Friday.

Dorje Tsering died from a cardiac arrest late on Thursday at the hospital where he was taken after setting himself ablaze at a housing settlement for Tibetan refugees in the northern city of Dehradun on Monday.



"He died last night around nine," hospital spokeswoman Poonam Dhanda told AFP, refusing to comment further.

The 16-year-old said from his hospital bed he had a "strong determination to do something for Tibet since my childhood", according to a translation from Free Tibet.

The London-based advocacy group said the teenager was the eighth Tibetan to mount such a protest outside China.

His death came after an 18-year-old Tibetan monk in China self-immolated on Monday to protest Beijing's ironclad control of the Himalayan region.

Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is funded by the US government, said the monk's action was the first such protest in China this year, and brought the total number in the country to 144.



Tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees live in Indian settlements, the biggest of which is in southern Karnataka state.

Their presence and that of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama are an irritant in relations between India and China.