Wang Qunying struggles to control the tears in front of her teenage son and daughter, who are unaware that their father has been taken hostage by unidentified gunmen in Nigeria.

"I hope they don't find out anytime soon. I don't want to scare them or affect their schoolwork," she said.

Wang's husband, Li Shaofu, 36, is one of five Chinese telecommunication workers who were abducted last Friday in the Rivers State of Nigeria.

All five are from Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Two of them are interpreters from the provincial capital Chengdu, while the other three technicians from the cities of Meishan and Neijiang, the provincial commerce department said yesterday.

Wang has trouble accepting the notion that her husband's fate is in other people's hands.

When she got the news on Saturday, Wang demanded to go to Nigeria to search for her husband, a local official told Xinhua.

"We tried to console her and reassure her that the government is doing everything it can to get her husband home safely," said Liu Hong, an official in charge of labor and security in Meishan.

Li is the sole breadwinner of this poverty-stricken family from Meishan's Renshou county. His job in Nigeria pays handsomely compared to local standards: He makes $800 a month, and Teleken Engineering Co, the Chengdu-based telecommunication company that employs him in Africa, sends his family an additional 800 yuan ($102) a month.

Wang's neighbor, Yin Yuqun, is also having a difficult time. Her husband, 42-year-old Gao Zeming, was also taken hostage.

"He left for Nigeria in 2005 and has never come home for a visit," said Yin. "I know he's saving every cent to repay the family's debts."

The family has been in debt since their house burned down in 2001, said Li Shaojun, a village official in the couple's home village of Guangsi.

"The medical bills of Gao's parents and school expenses for their only son, who is in senior high school, simply increased the burden."

Teleken Engineering withdrew its workers from two other locations in Rivers State to ensure their safety after the kidnapping.

The company has been contracted to install rural telephone services in Nigeria. When the project is completed it will improve telecommunication service in rural Nigeria.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered the Foreign Ministry and China's embassy and consulate in the African country to do everything possible to secure the release of the workers.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday night that the ministry had launched an "emergency mechanism" and urged the trade department of the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria to do everything it can to bring the five workers to safety.

The ministry said on Saturday that Teleken Engineering was to send a representative to Nigeria yesterday, but the provincial commerce department said on Monday that the representative's departure has been postponed.

Source: Xinhua