YANGON, March 23: A 26-year-old man set himself on fire in Yangon’s Buddhist temple in an apparent protest against economic hardship in military-ruled Myanmar, witnesses and police said on Sunday.

Witnesses said the man bent down to pray at a shrine in Shwedagon Pagoda on Friday — a Buddhist holiday here — before standing up, dousing himself with petrol and setting himself alight with a candle.

The temple was the focal point for Buddhist monks during anti-junta demonstrations in Yangon last year.

Some witnesses said that before the man’s apparent self-immolation, he said: “May we be free from economic hardship.” A Yangon police official, who refused to be named, identified the man as Thaw Zin Naing from Ayeyarwaddy Division west of Yangon.

“He is recovering now at Yangon General Hospital. The chance for his survival is 40 per cent,” the official said.

“No one heard clearly what he shouted at the time,” he said, adding that the man was not associated with any political party or pro-democracy group.—AFP