China says contact cut with workers held in Sudan

30 Jan 2012 01:49 Source: Reuters // Reuters BEIJING, Jan 30 (Reuters) - China's embassy in Sudan has lost contact with 29 Chinese construction workers held by rebels in the strife-troubled border state of South Kordofan, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday. The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) said on Sunday it was holding the Chinese workers for their own safety after a battle with the Sudanese army. The army has been fighting the SPLM-N in South Kordofan bordering newly independent South Sudan since June. But Beijing has said the workers were abducted and a Chinese Embassy official in Sudan told Xinhua they were out of contact. "The abducted Chinese personnel have had all communications links with the outside world cut," the unnamed official said, according to Xinhua. The fate of the workers has become a major news story in China, where the nation's expanding presence abroad -- and awareness of its rising status -- has triggered intense public sensitivity about nationals killed or taken hostage. "The unstable political situation is the root reason for attack, and the possibility cannot be excluded that the rebels are targeting Chinese as a bargaining chip with the government," Li Xinfeng, a researcher on African affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the China Daily newspaper. Sudan, where China maintains major interests in oil and infrastructure building, has been a focus of those anxieties. Sudan and South Sudan, at odds over a range of issues including oil revenues, regularly trade accusations of supporting insurgencies on each other's territory. South Kordofan is the main oil-producing state in Sudan. The SPLM is now the ruling party in the newly independent south of Sudan and denies supporting SPLM-North rebels across the border. SPLM-North is one of a number of rebel movements in underdeveloped border areas which say they are fighting to overthrow Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and end what they see as the dominance of the Khartoum political elite. Initial Chinese reports said 20 or more workers were taken by the rebels, who attacked the compound of a Chinese construction company operating in the area between the towns of Abbasiya and Rashad in South Kordofan. Wang Zhiping, a manager for Sinohydro Corp Ltd that employs the workers, said the company and government agencies were "doing everything possible to rescue the missing workers", Xinhua said. (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie) ================= China urges Egypt to seek release of kidnapped workers 01 Feb 2012 01:51 Source: Reuters // Reuters BEIJING, Feb 1 (Reuters) - China urged Egypt on Wednesday to secure the release of 25 Chinese workers kidnapped by Bedouin tribesmen, Beijing's latest attempt to free citizens held captive in other countries amid growing concern about the safety of its workers overseas. China had already declared it was "shocked" by the abduction of 29 Chinese workers held by rebels in the Sudanese border state of South Kordofan and wants their urgent release, highlighting growing fears over such incidents. Bedouin tribesmen kidnapped 24 Chinese cement factory workers and a translator in Egypt's Sinai region on Tuesday. China's foreign ministry later said it had launched an "emergency response mechanism". "The Chinese embassy in Egypt has made urgent representations to the Egyptian side and has asked Egypt to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals being held, work for their release as early as possible, and strengthen the security for Chinese personnel and businesses in Egypt," the ministry said in a statement on its website. The safety of workers overseas has attracted widespread attention in China and any deaths could become a more serious headache for the government, which Chinese citizens assume can wield its influence to protect nationals abroad. The foreign ministry also said Chinese institutions and people should "improve their risk awareness and strengthen security". The Chinese workers in Egypt's Sinai were on their way to a cement plant. Their kidnapping came just three days after the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) said it had taken the other 29 Chinese workers in South Kordofan for their own safety after a battle with the Sudanese army. The Sinai workers were being held in a tent near a road that the Bedouin had blocked for the past three days to press their demands that authorities free fellow Bedouin from prison, tribal sources said. They were riding in a bus to their cement plant when they were stopped in the morning by local residents and then taken to a makeshift tent nearby, Ma Jianchun, the commercial affairs counsellor at the embassy, told Xinhua news agency. The foreign ministry said the workers had not been harmed. The incidents in Sudan and Egypt dramatise China's difficulties with companies and workers who venture into dangerous places generally shunned by Western companies. A team of officials sent by China to Sudan to seek the release of the 29 workers held there arrived in the capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday, state news agency Xinhua said later in the day. (Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Ken Wills and Paul Tait) ==================