Ethiopian rebels freed seven Chinese workers on Sunday who were seized in a deadly oilfield raid, the guerrillas and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
Officials said gunmen killed 65 Ethiopians and nine other Chinese in Tuesday's pre-dawn assault on the exploration field in the barren eastern Ogaden region - one of the worst attacks to date on Beijing's growing interests in Africa.
"We handed them over to the ICRC," Adurahmin Mohammed Mahdi, a London-based spokesman for the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels told Reuters by telephone. "They are all very healthy. They are uninjured and very happy."
An ICRC spokesman in Addis Ababa confirmed the news, and said the freed men were on their way to the regional capital.
"I can confirm that they have been released. They are on their way to Jijiga," the spokesman told reporters. "They are all civilians."
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