A 35-year-old man in Belarus set himself on fire outside government headquarters in Minsk today and is now being treated as passersby and police extinguished the blaze with a fire extinguisher, Belarusian police said.
“The man who was injured in Independence Square has lost consciousness. “He has burns on more than 50% of his body, according to a preliminary examination of first aid services,” the Belarusian Health Ministry said in a statement.
Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemondanova told the official Belta news agency that police were in the area “to verify the circumstances of the incident”.
Video footage widely circulated on social media shows a man engulfed in flames in an mostly empty square in central Minsk near a statue of Lenin. Some people seem to be running towards him to try to put out the flames.
The motive of the 35-year-old for this act has not been known so far and the investigators are trying to find information about the case, according to a statement issued by the Investigative Committee of Belarus.
According to her, the man covered himself with a liquid and lit a fire.
This square in Minsk was one of the main gathering places of the people during the opposition demonstrations in summer and autumn in the Belarusian capital. Tens of thousands of people took part in the protests, despite their violent repression, to protest the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko, which he said was rigged, in an unprecedented protest movement in the country.
