CAIRO - About 20 Chinese nationals working for a cement factory in Egypt had been held by some local people in the northern Sinai town of Arish, a Chinese embassy official told Xinhua.

The Chinese workers were riding a bus to their plant when they were stopped by locals on a road in Arish and then taken to a tent nearby, the embassy official said.

The Chinese embassy was asking the Egyptian government to handle the incident immediately, and local police were rushing to the scene to negotiate, the official added.

A local security official told Xinhua that those local people were demanding the Egyptian government release their relatives detained several years ago and stop supplying natural gas to Israel.