2 killed, 9 injured in clash in Chinese sugar company in Madagascar

ANTANANARIVO - Two people were killed and nine others injured in a clash between force orders and local people in Morondava, 650 kilometers west of Madagascar's capital, a police official said on Thursday.

One was touched by bullet while another stopped breath at the hospital Thursday morning when six men and three women injured after the force order shoot in air to disappear 100 of crowed who rushed to the barrack of gendarmerie to ask the release of their friends, the police official told Xinhua by telephone asking not to be identified.

A hundred people led by some drugged men with axes, slingshots, and other edged weapons, rushed to the gendarme barrack in Morondava and launched stones to the force orders to ask the release of their friends arrested by the gendarmes on Wednesday.

These people were arrested after they looted the Chinese Sugar Company (SUCOMA) in Morondava some weeks ago.

They looted the company after they did not have positive response on their syndical demand.

On Thursday morning, the crowed came back to loot again and put in fire the sugar company in Morondava, looted also some other Malagasy staffs in the company and some other Chinese citizens in Morondava, the police said.

The force order still extinguished the fire Thursday afternoon, the police official said.

"The crowed robbed not only SUCOMA but also other Chinese in Morondava. It is very sad to see that this problem became xenophobia," the General Administrator of SUCOMA Zhou Jianping told Xinhua.

"The police asked to all Chinese living in Morondava, to move out to the capital for our security. We are now going to the capital," Zhou said.

The problem in SUCOMA began some weeks ago when seasonal workers in the company asked to be inserted as fixed workers. But the financial situation of the company cannot afford it to do that but the workers insist on it, according to Zhou.

The minister of Industry, of Development of Private Sector and Small and Medium Enterprises Jules Etienne said after he inspected the problem in Morondava that a contract was signed by the company and the seasonal workers and asked the latters to resume working.

However, Zhou told Xinhua that the minister lied. "I did not sign any contract with them. That's why the workers were angry because they were disappointed when they resumed works."