⁍ Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya said on Tuesday she had fled abroad for the sake of her children.
⁍ The 37-year-old former English teacher took her husband’s place on the ballot after he was jailed.
⁍ She urged her compatriots not to oppose the police and to avoid putting their lives in danger.
⁍ But unrest erupted for a third night in a row on Tuesday as security forces fired rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse protesters.
– Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya took her husband, an anti-government blogger, on the ballot in Sunday’s presidential election in Belarus—and now she’s out of the country. Tikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher who took her husband’s place on the ballot after he was jailed, says she has left the country for the sake of her children, Reuters reports. “I thought that this whole campaign had really toughened me up and given me so much strength that I could handle anything,” she says in an emotional video. “But, probably, I’m still the weak woman I was in the first place. I have made a very difficult decision for myself.” At least four people have been killed in protests following Alexander Lukashenko’s claim to have been re-elected, and the European Union says it’s reviewing its relations with the country. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, accuses the West of conspiring with the US and Russia to unseat him, the AP reports.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election/new-clashes-as-opposition-leader-flees-belarus-citing-childrens-safety-idUSKCN2570SG