A bronze statue is erected to commemorate Chinese laborers killed in a German bombardment during the World War I in the village of Busseboom of Poperinge city, west Belgium, Nov. 15, 2017. The statue standing three meters depicts three laborers doing the most common jobs in the battlefields -- carrying shells, digging trenches and evacuating wounded soldiers. Chinese, Belgian and Flemish anthems were sung for the victims at an inauguration ceremony attended by officials, diplomats, journalists and local residents. In the last two years of the WWI, some 140,000 Chinese laborers came to Europe, providing logistic services to the Allied Forces, who at that time were suffering severe manpower shortage. A total of 20,000 of these laborers never made it back to their motherland. Some died of illness and the tough working conditions, the others from attacks like the one in Poperinge. (Photo: China News Service/ De Yongjian)
