Xi Condemns Killings in African Nation Where Russian and Chinese Interests Compete

Shortly before landing in Moscow on Monday, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, condemned the killing of nine Chinese nationals a day earlier at a gold mine in the Central African Republic, where tensions have flared between Chinese and Russian interests.

Among competing claims about who was responsible — including one that blamed the Kremlin-backed Wagner mercenary group — Mr. Xi urged the authorities of the Central African Republic to bring the perpetrators to justice, according to a statement released by the Chinese foreign ministry. The ministry said two other Chinese nationals had been “severely injured” and called on its citizens to leave other areas of the country for the capital, Bangui, the only place there it does not consider high-risk.

The state prosecutor’s office told Agence-France Presse on Monday that an investigation had been opened into the killing.

At least one local official blamed a rebel group for the killings, which occurred early on Sunday, when masked assailants attacked a mining site run by a Chinese firm. But the Coalition of Patriots for Change, or C.P.C., an alliance of rebel groups trying to oust the pro-Kremlin president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, denied any involvement and instead blamed Wagner, the fighting force founded by an oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, which is also fighting in Ukraine.

Two Western officials based in Bangui said that while the killings may have been carried out by rebels, it was also likely that Wagner operatives were behind them.

Russian mercenaries have been operating since 2018 in the Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest countries despite its vast reserves of gold and diamonds, which has been plagued by bitter internal conflict since 2013. While Wagner operatives have helped the country’s military regain control of most of the country, they have done so at the expense of widespread abuses against civilians.

From beer to gold to timber, they have also extended their grip on the country’s economy.

There has been increased friction in recent months between Chinese companies that obtained mining concessions in the center of the country and companies affiliated with the Wagner group, which controls a sprawling gold mine nearby called Ndassima.

The Western officials, both speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give interviews, said that Wagner operatives had brought back the bodies of the nine Chinese nationals to Bangui. The nine men were shot, which the officials said did not correspond to methods employed by the rebel groups.

One of the officials said the C.P.C. had kidnapped at least one Chinese national for money over the past year. “They go for ransoms and the Chinese government pays,” the official said about the rebels. “But they don’t kill.”

A C.P.C. spokesman, Aboubakar Siddick Ali, said in a telephone interview that the killing bore the methods of the Wagner group. According to one of the Western officials, the victims were shot at close range.

“They want to put the blame on the C.P.C., but our goal isn’t to assassinate the Chinese,” the spokesman said, stressing that the group was focused on toppling Mr. Touadéra’s government.

In a statement, Evariste Ngamana, the vice president of the Central African Republic’s national assembly, accused “foreign mercenaries” affiliated with powers that “for centuries exercised violence in our country” of being behind the killing. But the statement from Mr. Ngamana, a politician known to be close to Russia, appeared to be a veiled reference to France, the former colonial power which until last year had troops positioned in the Central African Republic.