Over 20 migrant workers were injured and two remain in critical condition after a mass riot when more than 200 laborers rallied to demand their unpaid salaries and were attacked by unknown assailants in Beijing, reports the Beijing News on June 5.

A migrant worker sleeps at the Beijing West Railway Station May 16, 2006. A Chinese think-tank has called for higher minimum wages to halt the emergence of a new urban underclass, official media reported on Tuesday. [Reuters]

The Beijing-based daily newspaper says the unarmed migrant workers had assembled at the construction site where they worked asking for what they were owed when hundreds of assailants holding metal sticks appeared and began to beat them. Further investigation is underway.

Li, one of the injured, told the paper that the wounded workers are all from the same construction site.

"Construction officials owe us more than 300, 000 Yuan (US$37,500) so far and they agreed to pay us that day", says Li who has gauze over an injury on his shoulder.

Wang, a witness, says hundreds of assailants in black and wielding metal sticks lay siege to the workers, adding that some were injured because they weren't capable of running fast enough to get away.

A migrant worker stands at a door of his dormitory at a construction site in Beijing May 23, 2006. [Reuters]

Calls to the construction site were unanswered, according to the paper.

A man named Xue, whose brother is in a coma, is receiving treatment, the paper says.

His brother told the Beijing Times that the assailants cut off the exit and hit the workers for almost 10 minutes. They chased and attacked those running away for 500 meters.

"My brother was left on the roadside after he was hit and in a coma," Xue says.

According to a doctor, most of the injured are in stable condition.

"It was out of control at the scene and we had to deploy more police officials," a police officer says.

According to a Xinhua report, seventy-six percent of Chinese migrant workers get no premiums for working overtime on holidays.

The Chinese government has vowed to better ensure the basic rights of the nation's 200 million rural migrant laborers, who contribute to the prosperity and development of the country.