Chinese national injured in Cameroon attack survives

YAOUNDE - The Chinese national wounded in an attack Friday night against a camp of the company Sinohydro Bureau 16 has survived, vice general manager of this company told Xinhua.

The young man was shot by two bullets, one in the shoulder and the other in the abdomen, during the attack against the camp of his company near the Waza park in the far north region of Cameroon, said the vice general manager Lan Ronghe.

After a single treatment by medical officers of the Cameroonian army, the company decided to send the wounded to Chadian capital N'Djamena, some 200 miles north of the site.

Aided by Chinese embassy to Chad, the injured arrived at Chad- China Friendship Hospital on Saturday morning.

"He lost a lot of blood. The road is bad, the evacuation took too much time. Fortunately, the bullet that pierced his abdomen had not hit any vital organ apparently. He has regained his consciousness. The doctors said that if nothing extremely abnormal happens in coming hours, we can conclude that he is 100 percent out of danger," said Lan.

Chinese Embassy political counselor Lu Qingjiang told Xinhua that besides the injured Chinese employee, 10 others went missing and 10 vehicles of the Chinese company were taken in the attack.

"We urge the Cameroonian authorities do not put the lives of Chinese nationals missing in danger in case actions of liberation be launched," the Chinese diplomat said.

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

No organization claimed responsibility for the attack. The Cameroonian Ministries of Defense and Communications has made no statement relating yet.

Early April this year, two Italian priests and a Canadian religious were removed in this same 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 centered on Boko Haram, but the Cameroon government said it involved an unidentified armed group and was awaiting final results of an investigation.