BEIJING – China sent a team of officials to Sudan yesterday to seek the release of kidnapped oil workers in the disputed aftermath of rescue efforts after four Chinese hostages were killed.
Officials from the Foreign Ministry, Commerce Ministry and China National Petroleum Corpn (CNPC) left Beijing to “negotiate with the Sudanese side on all-out efforts and measures of rescuing a worker still missing,” Xinhua news agency reported. The Foreign Ministry said two were still missing.
The move appeared to be an attempt to bolster control of a standoff that went badly wrong on Monday, when the four kidnapped Chinese oil workers died in a clash between their captors and Sudanese forces.
They were in a group of nine Chinese nationals working for CNPC kidnapped over a week ago. Three of the men are in hospital after being rescued, Xinhua reported.
A spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry said there were four dead, three rescued and two still missing.
The Chinese officials “will continue contacts with the Sudanese side to again ask them to make every effort to rescue the missing personnel and sternly punish the culprits,” spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.
The killings and confusion have cast a shadow over Beijing’s ties with the oil-producing African country, where China is a key investor and supplier of arms.
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