Nigerian police on Friday afternoon promised they would quickly smashed the armed group that took five Chinese workers hostage early Friday morning.

Larry Pepple, chief security officer of the Rivers State, southeast Nigeria, told Xinhua that "the police are now chasing the armed kidnapers" who attacked a Chinese communication company at Emohua, River state, at round 6:30 a.m. local time (0530 GMT).

He promised that the police would "find the whereabout of the armed kidnappers later this (Friday) evening."

According to Li Cuiying, deputy consul general of the People's Republic of China in Lagos, the kidnappers also took away valuable things such as handsets worth 500,000 naira (about 4,000 U.S. dollars).

Li said both the Chinese embassy in the capital Abuja and the Chinese Consulate General in Lagos are greatly concerned about the hostages, voicing such concern when she visited the Liaison Office of the Rivers State Government in Lagos.

Li said "the Rivers state government and the Rivers state police command have promised to do their utmost to search for the five Chinese kidnapees."

According to A.M. Briggs, head of the Rivers State Government Liaison Office in Lagos, most Nigerians are friendly to the Chinese people.

He believed that "when the kidnappers know that the people they took away are Chinese, they would release them soon."

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

Rivers State is located in the oil-rich, troubled Niger Delta which is notorious for poor security where foreign workers have been held as hostages for more than 10 times since the beginning of 2006. But this is the first time that Chinese workers are kidnapped.

Source: Xinhua