A 14-member emergency group led by China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) leaders arrived in Kabul Saturday to deal with the affairs concerning the bloody attack on the corporation's workers in northern Afghanistan.
CRCC Deputy President Li Guorui told Xinhua that his company will not retreat or bow to terrorists. The construction work will go on but the security for the road construction workers must be beefed up by all means to avoid recurrence of such incident in the future, he stressed.
Li said the emergency group will focus on the treatment of the victims and the safety of the remaining workers.
The bodies of 11 dead workers and the injured will be transported to China as soon as possible, Chinese ambassador Sun Yuxi disclosed.
About 20 unidentified gunmen sprayed bullets on some 100 sleeping Chinese workers in a compound about 40 kilometers south of Kunduz in the wee hours on Thursday, killing 11 Chinese workers and one Afghan guard and injuring several others.
The Afghan government strongly condemned the "terrorist act" and blamed the ousted Taliban for the carnage. However, a Taliban spokesman said Taliban was not responsible for the attack.
(Xinhua News Agency June 13, 2004)