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The governor of the Chinese province shaken by a slave labor scandal publicly apologized on Friday, as officials described farmers, children and mentally impaired people snatched into a grim rural underworld.
Yu Youjun, chief of Shanxi in the country's north, "expressed his apologies to brother migrant workers and their families who suffered harm," the news agency reported.
His words did not augur well for his political prospects.
"As the province governor, I cannot shirk responsibility."
His gesture followed weeks of national uproar over hundreds of farmers, teenagers and children forced or cheated into exhausting, often unpaid work in brick kilns and other rural worksites, enduring beatings, some fatal.
So far Shanxi police have rescued 359 workers from the scorching brickworks, including 12 children and nine whose age was being checked, the news agency reported on Friday, citing police. About half the victims were coerced to kilns, and the others were "cheated," officials said.
The report did not give the children's ages, but Chinese laws define those younger than 16 as child laborers.
Among the rescued were also 65 mentally impaired people, including 15 whose identity and homes could not be determined.
Police in neighboring Henan province, where many victims came from, have rescued more than 200 other workers.
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