Suspects arrested in CAR killings

Three suspects in the murders of three Chinese nationals were arrested in Central African Republic on Saturday, according to the Chinese Embassy in the country.

Henri Wanzet Linguissara, CAR's interior minister, said that the trio have been arrested, and another search operation was scheduled to begin on Saturday night, during a meeting with Chinese ambassador Chen Dong.

He said a judicial investigation will be opened soon.

The minister also said that security force reinforcements had been deployed in Sosso-Nakombo, where the murders took place, to search and gather Chinese employees to protect their safety and property at the request of the Chinese Embassy.

The minister added that 58 Chinese people in the area had been evacuated by police to a safer neighboring town.

Abdoul Karim Meckassoua, the speaker of CAR's National Assembly, visited the Chinese embassy on Saturday, strongly condemned the killings and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

The Chinese ambassador reassured Meckassoua that China-Africa friendly cooperation is the trend of history, and that no one can stop the solid steps by both China and Africa to build a community of a shared future.

CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera and Prime Minister Simplice Mathieu Sarandji, who met Chen after the deadly attack, condemned the brutality of the perpetrators and also expressed their condolences to the families of the victims.

Attacked by bandits

The killings happened on Thursday when a boat carrying four Chinese nationals, who worked for a mining company, and a local man capsized near the town of Sosso-Nakombo.

When the Chinese nationals went to report the incident to a gendarmerie brigade, they were attacked by local bandits.

Three of the Chinese were killed and one seriously injured. The gendarmerie brigade was also attacked and ransacked.

The injured person was sent to the capital Bangui on Friday and later moved to Kampala in Uganda on a United Nations aircraft for further treatment.

The Chinese Embassy said that it will continue to follow the updates. The embassy also reminds Chinese citizens and Chinese-funded enterprises in the country to pay attention to their safety, and promptly report to the police and contact the embassy in case of emergency.

The CAR is a landlocked country in the central Africa region. It is among the 10 poorest countries in the world, with the lowest GDP per capita at purchasing power parity in the world as of 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

liuxuan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/08/2018 page12)