The first group of Chinese evacuated from the riot-torn Solomon Islands flew back to China yesterday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The 15 Chinese left the troubled South Pacific state on board Australian and New Zealand military aircraft on Wednesday and Thursday, arriving in Sydney.

The group 14 citizens and one overseas took a chartered flight to Shanghai and South China's Guangdong Province yesterday.

About 150 Chinese were also airlifted out of Honiara yesterday, travelling to the airport under heavy security in the back of three small trucks. They will join 90 Chinese, mostly women and children flown to Papua New Guinea on Saturday, and eventually be repatriated via Australia.

President Hu Jintao, who is on a state visit to Saudi Arabia, yesterday instructed the Foreign Ministry as well as Chinese embassies and consulates in Papua New Guinea and other countries to take measures to protect the security of the overseas Chinese in the riot-torn South Pacific state and help them tide over the current hardships facing them.

Chinese were the main target and victims of the protest riots triggered by the election of Snyder Rini as prime minister by 50 lawmakers chosen in parliamentary election on April 5 in the Solomon Islands.

The Chinatown in the country's capital of Honiara was nearly levelled following looting and arson attacks.

Dozens of Chinese-owned shops in Honiara were broken into.

There were more than 400 Chinese living and doing business in Honiara, most of whom are from Kaiping, a county in South China's Guangdong Province, according to an official with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in Kaiping.

"We have contacted them by telephone after the incidents, and some said their shops had been completely destroyed," the official, who asked not to be identified, told China Daily yesterday.

The direct economic losses resulting from the political riots to Chinese people are estimated to have reached more than US$10 million, according to the official.

Zhao Yanbo, political counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Papua New Guinea, said dozens of Chinese were taking shelter at a police station in Honiara.

They will be evacuated on a voluntary basis, he was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

As China and the Solomon Islands do not have diplomatic relations, two Port Moresby-based Chinese consulate officials are in Honiara to facilitate the evacuation.

Zhao said that some Chinese were injured during the riots, but none seriously.

Source: China Daily