One Tibetan woman's tragic path to self-immolation

Tsering Kyi had witnessed the erosion of her family's way of life and the repression of her fellow students' protests. This month she doused herself in five litres of petrol and set herself alight

Interactive: Since March 2011, more than 20 Tibetans have set themselves on fire

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    * Jason Burke
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            Jason Burke in Dharamsala
          o guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 March 2012 13.45 BST
          o Article history

Tibetan monks
Tibetan monks hold placards showing others who had set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule in Tibet during a protest in Dharamsala in October 2011. Photograph: Lobsang Wangyal/AFP/Getty Images

As a young girl, Tsering Kyi's favourite days of the year were the eve of her village's annual move to their summer pastures and the eve of their return. The lives of the 30 nomadic households of Tethok, in China's Gansu province, followed the rhythm of the seasons. In the spring they would load their household on to yaks and ride up into the high valleys and hills where their herds would find grass and the children would play with frogs in the lakes and streams. As the winter approached, they would return to lower grazing.

A day before they moved all the heavy items would be packed and sent ahead. The women and children would remain behind, sleeping under the stars, to follow the next day. This was Kyi's favourite time.

"I remember how she was always excited. She loved to sleep outside with her sister and brothers and all the cousins," said a close relative interviewed by the Guardian last week. "Even when she went to school and was a teenager she still came with the family to the pastures in the summer. She didn't like the town so much."

Three weeks ago, in the late afternoon, Kyi, now a 20-year-old student, set herself alight in a vegetable market in the centre of Machu town. Her last acts were to enter a public toilet, take off her traditional Tibetan overdress and douse herself in petrol. She then walked out into the market, ignited the fuel and became the 23rd Tibetan to self-immolate in just under a year.

Every few days in recent weeks there has been a report of another such burning. Since Kyi died seven more have followed suit – including a 27-year-old man who set himself on fire in New Delhi before a visit by China's president, Hu Jintao. The streets of Dharamsala, the Indian hill town where the Tibetan community in exile is based, are full of posters of these "martyrs", as they are known locally. The most recent poster shows a 44-year-old farmer. Few doubt there will be many more.