MAIDUGURI (AFP) – Gunmen shot dead a Chinese construction worker in Nigeria’s violence-torn city of Maiduguri on Friday, an official said, the second killing of a Chinese national in the region this month.
“It is true — one of the Chinese working at the Lagos Street-Custom bypass construction site was killed today,” said a spokesman for the state works ministry, Babakura Bukar, confirming reports from residents that the worker was shot dead.
A witness who also works with the Grandscope Limited firm said unidentified gunmen came to the site where the construction of a bridge was under way and shot the man dead.
“We all fled the site as soon as the gunmen fired on the man,” he said. The motive was not immediately clear.
On October 7, gunmen killed a Chinese national who was working as a chef for a different construction company in the northeastern town of Gubio.
Both Maiduguri and Gubio are located in Borno state, which has been hit hard by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram.
The October 7 shooting in the town of Gubio seemed to have been motivated by robbery however.
