(TibetanReview.net, Dec10, 2018) – Online reports suggest that there has been a third protest self-immolation this year in Chinese ruled Tibet with the latest one having occurred in Ngaba (or Ngawa, Chinese: Aba) County of Sichuan Province on Dec 8 afternoon.
There are no details yet about the protest incident itself, including on whether the self-immolator survived.
The self-immolator has been described as a young man named Drugkho, thought to be in his 20s, belonging to Soruma Village in the same county.
“A Tibetan youth self immolated on December 8 in the afternoon in Ngaba county, and it is true that it happened, but after the incident any discussion of this is very inconvenient,” the Tibetan Service of rfa.org Dec 9 quoted a source in Tibet as saying.
Another report said Drugkho had shouted long-life prayer for Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, as he burned, and for freedom in Tibet.
This incident brings the known number of self-immolation protesters in Chinese ruled Tibetan Plateau region since Feb 2009 to 155, including 42 in Ngaba alone.
Earlier, a 23-year-old man named Dobo was reported to have immolated himself and died in the same county on Nov 4, shouting prayers of long life for Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and for the latters’ right to return to his homeland. He was a resident of Jhakorma village-level division of the county’s Choeje-Ma Township. Little further information has emerged about this incident.
And in this year’s first protest self-immolation, Tsekho Tukchak, a father of two, torched himself and died in Ngaba’s Meuruma nomadic township on Mar 7, just ahead of the 59th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising day of Mar 10, 2018.
