Monk burns himself to death

Security forces have locked down the area surrounding a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in south-west China, a day after a young monk burned himself to death calling for the return of the region's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan rights group said.

Armed police surrounded the Nyitso monastery where the monk's body was taken in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a heavily ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province that borders Tibet, the International Campaign for Tibet said.

Thousands of ethnically Tibetan residents attempted to enter the monastery but were blocked by police at the gates, the Washington-based group said.

The immolation, the third by a Tibetan since 2009, was carried out on Monday by a 29-year-old monk, Tsewang Norbu, who was from a monastery in Tawu. Many advocates of self-rule say Tawu should be part of a larger homeland under Tibetal control.