• Five Chinese nationals kidnapped in late November while working at a gold mine.
• November 20 to 21, gunmen killed a police officer and kidnapped five Chinese.
• A number of Chinese companies are mining for gold in South Kivu province.

Five Chinese nationals kidnapped in late November while working at a gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s conflict-torn east have been released, local officials said Thursday.

“They’ve been released, that’s the main thing,” Aime Kawaya Mutipula, administrator of Fizi territory in South Kivu province, told AFP on Monday.

On the night of November 20 to 21, gunmen killed a police officer and kidnapped five Chinese men in the Fizi territory village of Mukera.

The abductees were employees of the Beyond Mining company, which operates a gold mine in partnership with a local cooperative.

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“They are in good health,” said Kakozi Kyakubuta, the head of a civil society organization made up of local citizens in Baraka, a town around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the site of the kidnapping.

“We did what we could at our level, we had conducted negotiations with the kidnappers since their abduction,” Kyakubuta added, without giving further details about any conditions of the release.

He said they had been kidnapped “for not having respected commitments made with residents who had ceded their land with a view to the mining of gold”.

He stated that the issues included road improvements and compensation for at least 80 families.

A number of Chinese companies are mining for gold in South Kivu province, one of the eastern regions of the vast and resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo that has been gripped by armed groups for more than 25 years.

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