The Foreign Ministry yesterday urged the Kenyan government to take effective steps to arrest the criminals who attacked a Chinese construction site in the country early on Tuesday.

Four unidentified armed men raided a factory about 3 am in Mombasa on Tuesday, where workers from the China Road & Bridge Corporation were carrying out a road construction project, leaving one engineer dead and another injured.

The injured worker is now out of danger and is being treated in a local hospital, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing yesterday.

The Chinese government has demanded Kenya take effective measures to crack the case and protect the property and safety of Chinese workers and companies, Jiang said.

Chinese embassy officials arrived at the scene immediately after the attack to investigate.

The dead worker has been identified as Xu Derong , 42, a Shanghai native. His co-worker, Zhang Kui, is in stable condition after undergoing emergency surgery.

Kenyan police are searching for the four attackers, whose identities are not known.

Initial investigations show it is a criminal case rather than a terrorist attack, Zhu Jing, a press official at the Chinese embassy in Kenya was quoted by the China News Service as saying. "The attackers fled with some cash and valuable pieces of equipment," Zhu said.

The local government has strengthened police presence near the construction site.

The port of Mombasa, the busiest in Kenya, is on an island to the southeast coast of the country. The island only has one railway connecting it to the mainland. The Chinese company is currently building a road there.

(China Daily 02/02/2007 page2)