A number of  suspects have now been arrested in the Central African Republic after three Chinese nationals were murdered last week by an angry mob.

The murders reportedly occurred after a boat capsized on a river near the town of  Sosso-Nakombo. The boat was carrying four Chinese employees of a mining company and a local youth leader. Afterward, the young man vanished.

When the Chinese survivors went to report the incident to a local gendarmerie brigade, they were surrounded and attacked by an angry mob of what the Central African Republic government has called “bandits,” who blamed the Chinese for the missing of young man.

At the Chinese embassy’s request, security reinforcements were deployed to the area and 58 Chinese nationals evacuated to the safety of a neighboring town. Abdoul Karim Meckassousa, speaker of they Central African Republic’s National Assembly, has strongly condemned the attack and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

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