BEIJING (AP) ? A group of 25 Chinese taken hostage in Egypt has been freed, but a second group seized in Sudan over the weekend are still being held, state media reported Wednesday.
The incidents several days apart reflect the dangers China faces as it pushes more into unstable areas in search of energy and business.
The official Xinhua News Agency quoted the Chinese Embassy in Cairo as saying the 25 were freed Wednesday, a day after they were grabbed off their bus on the way to a cement factory in the northern Sinai town of Arish.
Xinhua said the people who seized the workers demanded that the Egyptian government release relatives who had been detained several years ago for suspected involvement in attacks in south Sinai. The workers were freed in good condition, the agency said, citing an embassy official.
China has already sent a crisis team to Sudan and summoned a Sudanese diplomat to express its shock after the 29 workers there were taken by militants in the South Kordofan region.
"The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting overseas Chinese nationals," Vice Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng was quoted as saying in a statement posted on the ministry's website.
China hopes Sudan will "keep in mind the overall situation of bilateral friendship" and ensure their swift release, Xie told Sudanese Charge d'Affaires Omer Eisa Ahmed, according to the statement. China has close political and economic relations with Sudan centering on exchanging Chinese infrastructure projects for access to Sudanese oil.
China sent a group of security experts to assist in the rescue work and the head of the team, Qiu Xuejun, told Chinese state television in Khartoum that "as far as we know, the Chinese workers are safe. They are safe. They are not hurt."
Xinhua said 47 Chinese workers were caught in the attack in the South Kordofan region of Sudan. It said 29 were captured and the other 18 fled, and that one of those who fled remains missing. The attack took place near Abbasiya town, 390 miles (630 kilometers) south of Khartoum.
Sudanese officials have blamed the attack on the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, a branch of a guerrilla movement that has fought various regimes in Khartoum for decades. Its members hail from a minority ethnic group now in control of much of South Sudan, which became the world's newest country six months ago in a breakaway from Sudan.
Sudan has accused South Sudan of arming pro-South Sudan groups in South Kordofan. The government of South Sudan says the accusations are a smoke screen intended to justify a future invasion of the South.
China has sent large numbers of workers to potentially unstable regions such as Sudan. Last year it was forced to send ships and planes to help with the emergency evacuation of 30,000 of its citizens from the fighting in Libya.
South Sudan and Sudan are in bitter dispute over oil, which is produced primarily in South Sudan but runs through Sudanese pipelines for export.
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