Twelve Nepalese workers were injured when three firebombs were thrown into their hostel at a factory in Malaysia, local media reported today.

Most of the injured suffered burns, while some also broke bones when they jumped out of the windows as the hostel was engulfed in flames on Sunday, the Malay Mail said.

Witnesses said they had seen eight men on four motorcycles hurling objects at the hostel in the early hours of the morning.

The injured workers told the newspaper they had no idea why they had been attacked as they had no problems with fellow workers or people in the neighbourhood of the electronics factory in southern Johor state.

Room on fire

"I was sleeping when a commotion woke me up, the room was on fire," said Perm Bahadur Gurung, 28.

"There were 26 of us in the hostel and all of us were frantically trying to leave the building," he said.

Another victim, Prem Bahadur Ade, a 38-year-old father of four from Kare in Nepal, denied rumours that the attackers could have been Vietnamese co-workers at the factory.

"The Vietnamese workers are all women and we don't have any problem with them," he said.

Police are investigating. - AFP