Bodies of 9 killed Chinese will fly to China - Ethiopian Airlines

The bodies of nine Chinese killed in a rebel attack earlier this week will be flown to China on Saturday, officials said. "Those who are still alive and those who are dead, are going back to China but I can't confirm the date," Sun Qing, a Chinese embassy spokeswoman, told The Associated Press.

Sun declined to say whether the Chinese workers she referred to as alive are survivors' of Tuesday's attack or those who had been kidnapped by rebels and released without any publicity.

An Ethiopian Airlines official told the AP that a plane had been chartered to transport the bodies on Saturday night. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack on a Chinese-owned oil exploration field in eastern Ethiopia, killing 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese.

The group said in a statement sent to media organizations that six other Chinese workers "were removed from the battlefield for their own safety.'' On Friday, they promised to work with the Red Cross to return the six as soon as possible but said that Ethiopian government military operations in the Ogaden region placed the workers in danger.