Suicide bomb guard kills 24 migrants on bus

A guard on a Chinese bus carrying detained migrant workers detonated a suicide bomb, killing himself and the other 24 people on board, a human rights monitor said today.

The bus was on a main road near the city of Huidong, in the eastern province of Guangdong, when one of the two guards set off a home-made explosive, the Information Centre for Human Rights & Democracy said.

The blast ignited a fire that quickly swept through the bus, the Hong Kong-based centre said. The driver, the second guard and 22 detainees could not escape because the windows had bars.

Police in Huidong city confirmed the accident but refused to give details.

The 22 workers had probably come without permission from China’s poorer interior in search of work, the centre said.

Authorities try to round up illegal migrants and send them back to home towns, but they make little headway against the estimated 15 million people who flood into China’s fast-growing eastern cities every year.