President Xi Jinping has called for "severe punishment" for those behind an attack on a gold mine in the Central African Republic that left nine Chinese nationals dead and two others injured on Sunday, China's foreign ministry said.

In a statement on Monday, the foreign ministry said it had dispatched a team to the Chimbolo mine run by the Gold Coast Group, a Chinese company, following Xi's "important directive" that also called for the wounded to be rescued and treated.

"Our ambassador ... has raised the incident with the Central African Republic side, urging them to act," the statement said. "A working group from the embassy has rushed to the site to coordinate the response to the attack."

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

The mine is located about 25km from Bambari, in the south of the country. Photo: Shutterstock alt=The mine is located about 25km from Bambari, in the south of the country. Photo: Shutterstock>

A group of heavily armed gunmen took over the mine at around 5am on Sunday and opened fire, Abel Matipata, the mayor of Bambari, a town located about 25km (16 miles) from the mine in the south of the country, told Associated Press. He said the mine had opened days earlier.

The central African country has rich mineral reserves. While French companies dominate the mining industry in the former French colony, foreign firms, including those from China and Russia, have made inroads into the lucrative business.

Central African Republic officials have blamed political instability since 2012 for the country's underdevelopment despite its wealth of mineral resources. The government, backed by the United Nations, Russia and Rwanda, has been fighting rebel militias that have control mainly over the east and north of the country. The conflict between the groups is being fought largely along religious lines between Christians and Muslims.

China's embassy in the Central African Republic on Monday warned Chinese nationals located outside the capital, Bangui, to leave immediately. In a notice on its website, it also told nationals not to travel outside the government-controlled city after reports of militants kidnapping foreigners.

The embassy posted a similar notice on March 13 after armed men kidnapped three Chinese nationals in the country's west.

In a statement, militant rebel group the Coalition of Patriots for Change denied claims on social media that it was involved in Sunday's attack and accused Russia's Wagner Group and the Central African Republic's livestock minister of planning the attack, without providing evidence. The government has worked with the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organisation founded by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Independent human rights experts associated with the UN Human Rights Council have accused the Wagner Group of "committing systemic and grave human rights and international humanitarian law violations" that included arbitrary detention and torture.

Beijing has discouraged companies from China from pursuing trade outside Bangui since 2018, when three Chinese gold miners were killed in the Central African Republic.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.