TUNIS, Sept 12, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - A Tunisian man suffered died in hospital

Saturday after setting himself on fire, witnesses and medics said, days after
another burned himself alive to protest living conditions.

  Both acts recall the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, the street seller
whose suicide by fire on December 17, 2010 launched Tunisia's revolution
which in turn sparked the Arab Spring that toppled several autocratic leaders
in the region.

  On Saturday, a 35-year-old man "set himself on fire on Habib Bourguiba
Avenue" in the centre of Tunis, the civil defence told AFP.

  The man, whose motives are still unknown, "suffered third degree burns and
was rushed to hospital", a civil defence spokesman added.

  Local media including state television later reported that he had died of
his injuries.

  A witness, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the man had arrived at
the iconic avenue in central Tunis accompanied by a younger man and tried to
attract the attention of some journalists who were present there.

  The man then doused himself with flammable material which he set on fire
with a lighter, the witness said.

  Police set up barricades in the area, and an AFP reporter saw a pair of
burned shoes behind them shortly after the incident.

  Last week a young man wounded in the 2011 revolution burned himself alive
after the government failed to provide compensation, his family said.

  Neji Hefiane, 26, died in a hospital on the southern outskirts of Tunis on
September 4 after having set himself alight in front of his family, his
father said.

  Hefiane suffered gunshot wounds to the head during anti-regime protests in
the early days of the revolution, according to his family, and although he
was on an official list of people entitled to government aid, he received no
compensation.

  "It was the injustice and marginalisation he suffered that pushed my son to
kill himself," his father, Bechir Hefiane, said on Monday.

  He said he wrote to President Kais Saied explaining his son's case and
asking him to intervene on behalf of the struggling family that lives in a
working-class Tunis district.

  "We've got no reply, even after my son's death," he added.