Seven people were killed in a gun battle between border guards and Chinese illegal migrants at a remote frontier crossing in northeast Vietnam, Vietnamese authorities said Friday.

An official surnamed Qi with the political division at the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam told the Global Times that Chinese authorities are handling the incident, but did not reveal any details. The official said the identities of the migrants are still under investigation.

Sixteen Chinese nationals - 10 men, four women and two children - were detained early Friday after attempting to enter Vietnam, the Quang Ninh provincial government said in a statement.

Vietnam's Thanh Nien News reported that Chinese border officials had notified the post that a group had planned to sneak into the country illegally.

The statement said that while authorities were preparing to send them back, "Several of the illegal migrants seized an AK-47 rifle from a Vietnamese officer and opened fire around noon," killing one guard on the spot.

Vietnamese officers urged them to surrender their weapons, including knives carried by the women; instead, they continued to fight, said the statement.

Vietnamese and Chinese authorities sought to calm the situation but the migrants refused to drop their weapons and a firefight erupted, it added.

In total two Vietnamese border guards and five Chinese migrants were killed, according to the statement, which said the incident was "not a terrorist attack." Another four border guards were wounded.

Thanh Nien News reported that some Chinese migrants apparently committed suicide by leaping out the windows; others were gunned down by Vietnamese officers.

The statement did not say whether the dead included Chinese women and children.