China presses Sudan to help free workers

China called on Sudan on Tuesday to seek urgently the release of 29 Chinese workers held by rebels in the border state of South Kordofan and said it had sent a team of officials to help win their freedom.       

The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng summoned a senior diplomat at Sudan's embassy in Beijing to deliver the message, the official Xinhua news agency said in a bulletin.     

In a separate incident, Bedouin tribesmen in Egypt's Sinai region kidnapped 25 mostly Chinese cement factory workers on Tuesday, demanding that authorities free fellow Bedouin from prison, sources from the tribe said.       

China's message to Sudan underscored the pressure that China faces to secure the safe return of the abducted construction workers, as did its announcement earlier on Tuesday that it had sent officials from the Foreign Ministry and other agencies to Sudan the previous day to "assist in rescue work".        

The workers' plight 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 abduction is the latest incident dramatizing China's difficulties with companies and workers venturing to dangerous places generally shunned by Western companies.     

Reuters