China Charges 3 With Robbing, Killing 24 Taiwan Tourists in Lake Boat Fire

Chinese officials confirmed today that 24 Taiwanese tourists and eight mainland Chinese were murdered aboard a lake cruise boat and said that three men have been charged in the crime.

In the worst incident of violence against tourists since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, Zhejiang province authorities said the three men, all in their early 20s, robbed the passengers and then set fire to the tourist boat, killing the Taiwanese and the eight mainland Chinese guides and crew members.

The incident provoked a crisis in relations between Taiwan and China after relatives of the victims charged that Chinese officials blocked their attempts to investigate what happened March 31 on Qiandao Lake, about 200 miles southwest of Shanghai.

Zhejiang province officials said Wu Lihong, 22, Hu Zhihan, 24, and Yu Aijun, 22, had all confessed.

In recent years Qiandao Lake, southwest of the historic city of Hangzhou in eastern China, had become a regular stopover for Taiwanese tourists on tours of the Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) region in Anhui province and Hangzhou.