Ex-Tibetan monks set themselves on fire in China protest

Two former Tibetan monks set themselves on fire in far western China, in what an activist group said was the latest in a series of self-immolation protests against Chinese rule.

The official Xinhua News Agency said a 22-year-old man set himself on fire at a crossroads in Aba prefecture in Sichuan province on Friday and was taken to hospital with serious burns.

It said another man burned himself to death in a hotel room on the same day.

Both of the men were former monks, it said.

At least 14 monks, nuns and former monks are now believed to have set themselves on fire in the past year, mostly in traditionally Tibetan areas of Sichuan that have been hotbeds of opposition to central government control.