CAIRO (CNN) — Egyptian officials worked Tuesday to negotiate the release of more than two dozen Chinese workers who were kidnapped by Bedouins on their way to work at a military-owned cement factory in the Sinai, the Chinese Embassy said.

The men — 24 workers and a translator — were on a bus being driven to their work site when they were stopped by locals and taken to a makeshift tent nearby, commercial affairs counselor of the embassy Ma Jianchun told the state-run Xinhua news agency.

“A group of armed Bedouin, who had been blocking the road for four days, are demanding the government release detainees including several men sentenced in relation to the 2004-2006 bombings in South-Sinai and Sharm El Sheikh,” said Egyptian Gen. Saleh Al Masry, the head of North Sinai Security.

The workers are safe, according to a statement by an official from the Chinese Embassy.

Zhang Zhizhong, the embassy consular affairs director, said some workers have been able to contact the embassy with their cell phones.

The Sinai Bedouin have claimed that the now dissolved State Security apparatus has killed their members in cold blood and framed many Bedouin who had not harmed the Egyptian state in any way.

“Dozens of Bedouin from different tribes including Tarabeen and Swarke and Islamist extremists have been blocking the road for days, distributing flyers, calling for the release of framed detainees and stopping the export of gas to Israel, ” Salem Aenizan, a Bedouin fugitive from the Tarabeen tribe told CNN. “We have been marginalized and not allowed to own land, and framed by the police as drug and weapons dealers.”

Officers from Egyptian intelligence and the Ministry of Interior arrived to the scene with neutral Bedouin escorts who volunteered to mediate for the release of the workers.

“The Bedouin involved are angry that no one from government responded to them for days. The bus transporting the workers drove by them so they hijacked the bus to get the military’s attention. They want the release of five Bedouin on death row for the bombings of Sinai,” said Ibrahim Maenei, a Bedouin from the Swarke tribe assisting the police.

Chinese Ambassador Song Aiguo is urging Egyptian captors to “put the safety of the Chinese workers first, properly handle the incident and secure their release as soon as possible.”