Four more Chinese feared dead in Sri Lanka bombing as search for missing goes on
- Four feared dead in attack on hotel believed to be oceanography students
- Ambassador in Colombo says embassy ‘will not give up’ search for fifth person
Four of the five Chinese missing in bombings in Sri Lanka on Sunday were feared dead, with efforts continuing to locate the fifth, Chinese ambassador to Colombo Cheng Xueyuan said on Wednesday.
Cheng said that four were “suspected to be dead” and the embassy was waiting for confirmation, according to video clips posted online by The Beijing News.
“The embassy has notified their families and employers to come to Colombo for final confirmation,” Cheng said. “They are still suspected deaths because we need final identification by families and technology.”
The four were killed at the Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo, he said.
Four of the missing Chinese – Li Dawei, Li Jian, Pan Wenliang and Wang Liwei – were students from the Ministry of Natural Resources’ First Institute of Oceanography who were in Sri Lanka to take part in a study in the Indian Ocean. It was not clear if the four feared dead were from the institute.
Cheng said the embassy “would not give up and would spare no efforts” to find the fifth missing person, after staff searched hospitals and mortuaries.
“The difficulty in searching for and identifying them was beyond imagination,” he said.
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One Chinese national was confirmed dead in the bombings, which killed 359 people and wounded 500. Five Chinese nationals, including four students from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, were wounded in the bombing of a hotel.
Four of the wounded were discharged from hospital and returned to China on Tuesday. One remained in hospital for treatment, Cheng said.
Separately, Lakshitha Ratnayake, the Sri Lankan consul general in Shanghai, said on Tuesday that his country should learn from China about security checks, according to footage posted online by Pear Video.
“In China, if you go to an important event like an expo or even go to a hotel, you need to pass the security check. It is very good,” Ratnayake said.
