A fifth group of 22 overseas Chinese and their families arrived in Cyprus Thursday noon on board a Greek ship after hours of traveling from bomb-hit Lebanon.

 

Staff with the Chinese embassy in Cyprus met them at Larnaca Port, according to sources with the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The embassy will arrange their journey home in a few days.

 

A total of 143 Chinese have been evacuated from Lebanon to Cyprus or Syria since July 15.

 

Governments around the world have been scrambling to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon as the intense Israeli military offensive entered its ninth day in the worst fighting across the border in more than two decades.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2006)