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Eleventh Tibetan sets herself on fire in China

Thu, 3 Nov 2011 10:45 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

(Changes headline to clarify not all 11 have died)

BEIJING, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A Tibetan nun burnt herself to death on Thursday in southwest China, Xinhua news agency said, the eleventh ethnic Tibetan this year known to have set themselves on fire in a region that has become the centre of defiance against strict Chinese control.

Qiu Xiang, 35, set herself on fire at a road crossing in Dawu county of Ganzi, called Kandze by Tibetans, in Sichuan province, the state news agency said, citing the local government.

The nun was from the county's Tongfoshan village, Xinhua said. The report said it was unclear why she killed herself and the local government had launched an investigation.

Last week, a Tibetan Buddhist monk doused himself in fuel and set himself ablaze in Ganzi in Sichuan.

Most people in Ganzi and neighbouring Aba, the site of eight self-immolations, are ethnic Tibetan herders and farmers, and many see themselves as members of a wider Tibetan region encompassing the official Tibetan Autonomous Region and other areas across the vast highlands of China's west.

China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist since Communist troops marched in in 1950. Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled nine years later after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama, whom China condemns as a supporter of violent separatism, in late October led hundreds of maroon-robed monks, nuns and lay Tibetans in prayer in his adopted homeland in India to mourn those who have burned themselves to death.

The Dalai Lama denies advocating violence and insists he wants only real autonomy for his homeland.

But the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said the Dalai Lama should take the blame for the burnings, and repeated Beijing's line that Tibetans are free to practise their Buddhist faith. (Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)