BEIJING, Feb 1 (Reuters) - China urged Egypt on Wednesday to secure the release of 25 Chinese workers kidnapped by Bedouin tribesmen, Beijing's latest attempt to free citizens held captive in other countries amid growing concern about the safety of its workers overseas.
China had already declared it was "shocked" by the abduction of 29 Chinese workers held by rebels in the Sudanese border state of South Kordofan and wants their urgent release, highlighting growing fears over such incidents.
Bedouin tribesmen kidnapped 24 Chinese cement factory workers and a translator in Egypt's Sinai region on Tuesday. China's foreign ministry later said it had launched an "emergency response mechanism".
"The Chinese embassy in Egypt has made urgent representations to the Egyptian side and has asked Egypt to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals being held, work for their release as early as possible, and strengthen the security for Chinese personnel and businesses in Egypt," the ministry said in a statement on its website.
The safety of workers overseas has attracted widespread attention in China and any deaths could become a more serious headache for the government, which Chinese citizens assume can wield its influence to protect nationals abroad.
The foreign ministry also said Chinese institutions and people should "improve their risk awareness and strengthen security".
The Chinese workers in Egypt's Sinai were on their way to a cement plant. Their kidnapping came just three days after the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) said it had taken the other 29 Chinese workers in South Kordofan for their own safety after a battle with the Sudanese army.
The Sinai workers were being held in a tent near a road that the Bedouin had blocked for the past three days to press their demands that authorities free fellow Bedouin from prison, tribal sources said.
They were riding in a bus to their cement plant when they were stopped in the morning by local residents and then taken to a makeshift tent nearby, Ma Jianchun, the commercial affairs counsellor at the embassy, told Xinhua news agency.
The foreign ministry said the workers had not been harmed.
The incidents in Sudan and Egypt dramatise China's difficulties with companies and workers who venture into dangerous places generally shunned by Western companies.
A team of officials sent by China to Sudan to seek the release of the 29 workers held there arrived in the capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday, state news agency Xinhua said later in the day. (Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Ken Wills and Paul Tait)
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