Chinese company attacked in Cameroon, 10 missing

YAOUNDE - One Chinese national was injured and 10 others are missing following an attack by an unidentified armed group on a Chinese company in the far north of Cameroon on Friday night, the Chinese Embassy here has confirmed.

No organization has claimed responsibility for the attack.

"The camp of the Cameroon subsidiary of China's Sinohydro Bureau 16 in the far north was attacked by an armed group. A Chinese employee was injured, 10 others went missing. The armed attackers also took 10 vehicles of the Chinese company," embassy political counselor Lu Qingjiang told Xinhua.

"The wounded person has been evacuated to Chad for emergency care. We have contacted the Cameroonian authorities, demanding they take effective measures to locate our compatriots and guarantee the safety of all other Chinese nationals in that region," she said.

The Cameroon ministries of defense and communication could not be reached for comment. Cameroon forces were on the way to the site, a military source told Xinhua.

The subsidiary of Sinohydro, a leading Chinese international contractor in the power and infrastructure sectors, is working on a road improvement project Cameroon-Nigeria border, a region marked by increasing insecurity in recent years.

In February 2013, a French family of three adults and four children aged 5 to 12 years, were kidnapped in the region and taken to Nigeria, where they were held for two months before being released.

In November 2013, a group of armed men from Nigeria who spoke English, kidnapped a French priest, Georges Vandenbeusch, who was later released.

In April this year, two Italian priests and a Canadian were abducted from their residences in the region.

Boko Haram, the Islamic sect responsible for many horrific terrorist acts in Nigeria, claimed responsibility for some of these kidnappings in videos posted on the Internet.

Last week, an attack against a police station in Kousseri on Cameroon-Chad border in northern Cameroon by a heavily armed group killed at least two people. Speculation centred on Boko Haram, but the Cameroon government said it involved an unidentified armed group and was awaiting final results of an investigation.