New Delhi, Mar 4 (AFP): A Tibetan schoolboy living in India has died four days after setting himself on fire to protest Chinese rule, the hospital treating him said today.

Dorje Tsering died from a cardiac arrest late on Thursday at the hospital where he was taken after setting himself ablaze at a housing settlement for Tibetan refugees in the northern city of Dehradun on Monday.

"He died last night around nine," hospital spokeswoman Poonam Dhanda told news agency AFP.

The 16-year-old said from his hospital bed he had a "strong determination to do something for Tibet since my childhood", according to a translation from Free Tibet.

The London-based advocacy group said the teenager was the eighth Tibetan to mount such a protest outside China.

His death came after an 18-year-old Tibetan monk in China self-immolated on Monday to protest Beijing's ironclad control of the Himalayan region.

Tens of thousands of Tibetans refugees live in India. Their presence and that of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama are an irritant in relations between India and China.