Two Chinese workers were murdered last weekend on an oil field repair mission in Sudan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday.

The two employees of Liaohe Oil Field Road Construction Co., a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), failed to return to their living quarters on Friday night. They were found dead the next day around noon, 30 kilometers from their camp.

Gunshot and knife wounds were found on their bodies.

Four suspects were arrested and the case is still under investigation, the Sudanese Embassy in China told the foreign ministry yesterday.

The two bodies were found the day before the rescue of the second of two Chinese workers kidnapped in Sudan a fortnight ago by anti-government militants.

Both men are expected to arrive in Beijing tonight to meet their families.

"They are basically in a good condition, except that one has slight headache after long hours of driving after his rescue last Saturday," Zhang Xiaojuan, administrative director of the Tianjin-based North China Geological Survey Bureau, told China Daily. A Sudan-based company subordinate to the bureau employed both workers.

Zhang will meet the two workers at the Capital International Airport along with their family members.

"We are going to give the two a long break before they go back to work," said Zhang. "After all, they must have been suffering a lot and be very tired now."

Li Aijun and Jia Huipeng were abducted on March 13 while working on a well-digging project at Darfur, 80 kilometers from Buram in western Sudan.

Jia escaped to safety on March 19. Li was released on March 27 after negotiations by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (ICRC), as well as the efforts of the Sudanese and Chinese governments.

The two workers tried to escape three times, but only one of them made it on the final attempt.

At first they were not physically bound, and the two ran away from the militants' camp when their guard neglected to keep an eye on them. They were sent back to the camp when they ran into a village belonging to the militants' supporters.

They ran off a second time but were again caught.

After the second attempt, they were shackled to a tree and watched closely, but Jia, the smaller of the two, managed to break loose. He tried to break Li's shackles with a stone but failed. When the rebels approached, Jia ran off.

This time. Jia got a lucky break. He met a Sudanese worker he knew and got a ride back to his company's branch office in Nyala.

Jia, 22, reportedly said the rebel army did not treat them too badly. He and Li were given sufficient food and water and the rebels even boiled water for them to drink hot tea, said Jia.

Jia said he did not believe the rebels abducted them out of hatred for the Chinese. It was likely that the militants used them to bargain with the Sudanese government for political advantages, he said.

An official with the Chinese Embassy in Sudan told China Daily the rebels may have been ensuring their own safety when they abducted the two workers.

"The rebels encountered the two Chinese workers after attacking and looting a local police station," the official said.

All property taken together with the Chinese workers, including a vehicle and the valuable equipment it held, was returned unconditionally.

(China Daily March 31, 2004)