Dozens of Chinese workers have been relocated from strife-torn northern Iraq, state media said earlier today with an additional 1,200 set to depart in the coming days.
More than 50 China Machinery Engineering Corp (CMEC) workers arrived in Baghdad by helicopter from northern Iraq on Wednesday night, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported.
Another 1,200 trapped in the northern city of Samarra will arrive in Baghdad by bus “within three days”, the report added.
Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have spearheaded a lightning offensive that has captured swathes of territory north and west of Baghdad this month.
China — the largest foreign investor in Iraq´s oil industry — has more than 10,000 workers on a wide range of projects in the country, officials say, although most are in the south, far from the current fighting.
