An unemployed Egyptian man who set himself on fire in Alexandria died on Tuesday, medical sources said.
Ahmed Hashim al-Sayyed, 25, set fire to himself on the top floor of his building in Alexandria’s Khourshid neighborhood earlier on Tuesday, echoing several self-immolation attempts in Tunisia last month.
A security source told Al-Masry Al-Youm that al-Sayyed had been unemployed since 2009. He died in the hospital after suffering from third degree burns.
Two earlier attempts at self-immolation in Egypt included an Egyptian lawyer named Mohamed Farouk who set himself on fire near parliament in downtown Cairo on Tuesday, and a 49-year-old man who set himself alight near parliament on Monday after chanting anti-government slogans.
Similar cases have been reported in Algeria and Mauritania. Like the Tunisians, whose public protests led to the ousting of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Arabs in other states are frustrated by soaring prices, poverty, high unemployment and authoritarian systems of rule that deny them a voice.
