TIRANA, Sept. 24 – A 53-year-old man attempted to perform a self-immolation Saturday morning near the U.S. Embassy building in Tirana.
The man, who has been identified only by the initials F.S., was rescued by police officers who prevented him from setting himself on fire.
Video from the scene showed people trying to beat the flames out with blankets and then spraying the man with a fire extinguisher.
The man was treated for non-critical burns at the Mother Teresa University Hospital Center in capital Tirana and then was questioned by the police.
According to the police, the man was a former anti-communist dissident angry he was not compensated for his suffering under communism. He said he wanted to protest against the government “because he felt abandoned by the Albanian state but also by the United States.”
There have been several self-immolations involving members of this community in the past.
