Ethiopian rebels have released the seven Chinese oil workers kidnapped in a deadly raid on an oil field in the eastern part of the country, an Ethiopian official told Xinhua on Sunday.

"The seven Chinese workers have been freed after negotiations with the rebels," said Bereket Simon, an advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

"They are still on their way to Jijiga. This is the information that I have got at the moment," said Simon.

Jijiga is the capital of Somali state, where the Chinese workers were kidnapped on Tuesday. Some 65 Ethiopians and nine other Chinese workers were killed in the attack.

Ethiopia's Defense Ministry confirmed that the Chinese hostages had been released.

As it was raining hard around the Jijiga area, the Chinese workers might arrive at the city a bit later in the day, an official from the defense ministry said.

The kidnappers, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), said they had handed the workers to the ICRC.

"We have released the Chinese at 2:00 p.m. (1100 GMT) today to the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross)," Abderahmane Mahdi, the London-based spokesman for the ONLF said.

The ICRC in Addis Ababa confirmed the rebels' words, saying the Chinese workers had been handed over to them.

"I can confirm that they have been released," a ICRC spokesman told reporters.

The Chinese staff worked for the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau of the China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation.

The Chinese government condemned the attack and demanded Ethiopia work to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and property.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said "the Chinese government strongly condemns this atrocious armed attack, mourns for the Chinese and Ethiopian victims and expresses deep sympathies to their families and those injured in the attack."

The ONLF, which formed in 1984 and operates in the Ogaden region of the Somali State which borders with Somalia, took up arms against the Ethiopian government in the early 1990s, demanding independence for Ogaden.

Editor: Donald