Israelis held by disgruntled Chinese workers released
Israelis held on a small Atlantic island by Chinese construction workers angry over unpaid salaries were released yesterday after their employers agreed to pay their wages, the foreign ministry said.
Earlier this week hundreds of Chinese workers prevented 15 representatives of the Israeli construction firm Ashtrom from leaving the West Caicos Island, one of a group of islands which form the British territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands near the Bahamas.
Nine of the Israelis were released on Thursday and the remainig employees were freed on Satursday after Ashtrom reached an agreement with the Chinese workers to pay their wages, foreign ministry spokesman Yossi Levy told AFP.
"According to the information we have received, all the Israelis were released after Ashtrom agreed to pay the Chinese," he said.
The trouble started earlier this month when work on a high-end resort building project on the long uninhabited island was suspended after the Lehman Brothers bank financing the project filed for bankrupcy.
The Chinese workers sealed off the island's sole port to protest the suspension of their wages after they had to pay intermediaries the equivalent of 15,000 dollars to be hired for the project, Levy said earlier this week.
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