The European Union (EU), Japan andthe International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the killing of 11 Chinese workers in Afghanistan on Thursday, a press release from the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

In his Friday's message to the Chinese government, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana expressed the hope that the international community cooperate closely to bring the criminals to justice.

In a message to her Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing on Friday, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said that the cowardly act should not be allowed to occur any more, urging the international community to jointly take part in the campaign against terrorism.

A senior ICRC official also pledged to provide all the assistance in dealing with problems arising from the incident.

The press release said that the three also expressed their condolences to the families of the dead.

The Chinese workers were killed in a terrorist attack carried out by a group of some 20 unknown armed men at the compound of Chinese workers on a construction site 36 km south of Kunduz province at around 01:00 a.m. local time (2030 GMT Wednesday) on Thursday.

Many of them came from eastern China's Shandong province and had only arrived in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

Source: Xinhua