Tripoli (AsiaNews / Agencies) - More than a thousand workers of a Chinese construction company, attacked and looted by armed men, are on a march of hundreds of miles across the desert to reach the airport in Tripoli, in an attempt to leave for Beijing. Huafeng Company's compound was raided on Feb. 20 in the eastern city of Ajdabiyah, 863 km from the capital.
The looters threatened staff with weapons, and took away all they including baggage and computers. No one was hurt in the attack. The workers, clutching their passports and carrying food, decided to walk towards Tripoli, "several hundred kilometres” away hoping to catch the first flight to China.
Yesterday, Beijing invited businessmen to postpone their trips to Libya and businesses operating in the country to take every precaution because of the fighting that has been raging for days. Huafeng has its headquarters in the eastern province of Zhejiang, and has contracts for the construction of residential areas in Libya. Yesterday, a crowd of several hundred Libyans looted a construction site west of Tripoli, injuring workers from South Korea and Bangladesh.