Kabul, Afghanistan – Afghan police discovered the bullet-riddled body of a male hostage Wednesday, one of 23 South Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban last week.
Because of a recent spike in kidnappings – including an attempt against a Danish citizen Wednesday – police announced that foreigners no longer were allowed to leave the Afghan capital without their permission.
The South Korean victim was found with 10 bullet holes in his head, chest and stomach in the Qarabagh district in Ghazni province, the region where the group was seized July 19 while riding in a bus, said Abdul Rahman, a police officer.
A police official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, said militants told him the hostage was sick and couldn’t walk and was therefore shot. A South Korean public broadcaster, KBS, identified the victim as 42-year-old pastor Bae Hyung-Kyu.
A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose information, said reports had circulated Wednesday that eight of the hostages had been released. But he said those reports had never been confirmed.
Marajudin Pathan, the governor of Ghazni province, said the militants were still holding the remaining 22 South Korean hostages.
“No one has been released, and there has not been any exchange,” Pathan told The Associated Press by phone. “They are still in Taliban custody.”
Pathan said authorities were in contact with kidnappers early today trying to secure the Koreans’ freedom. The militants gave a list of eight Taliban prisoners who they want released in exchange for eight Koreans, he said.
An Afghan official involved in the negotiations earlier said a large sum of money would be paid to free eight of the hostages. The official also spoke on condition he not be identified, citing the matter’s sensitivity. No other officials would confirm this account.
Foreign governments are suspected to have paid for the release of hostages in Afghanistan in the past but have either kept it quiet or denied it outright. The Taliban at one point demanded that 23 jailed militants be freed in exchange for the Koreans.
The South Koreans, including 18 women, were kidnapped while on a bus trip through Ghazni province on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, Afghanistan’s main thoroughfare.
South Korea has banned its citizens from traveling to Afghanistan in the wake of the kidnappings. Seoul also asked Kabul not to issue visas to South Koreans and to block their entry into the country.
The South Korean church that the abductees attend has said it will suspend at least some of its volunteer work in Afghanistan. It also stressed that the Koreans abducted were not involved in any Christian missionary work, saying they provided only medical and other volunteer aid to distressed people in the war-ravaged country.
Two Germans were also kidnapped last week. One was found dead and the other apparently remains a captive. A Danish reporter of Afghan origin escaped a kidnap attempt in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, the Danish Foreign Ministry said.
The unidentified man “was close to being caught but managed to get away and reach a local police station,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ole Neustrup said. The Dane was first reported to be German, but that report was false, Khan said.
The series of recent kidnappings prompted the Afghan government to forbid foreigners living in Kabul from leaving the city without police permission.
Elsewhere, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said a soldier was killed in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday by a rocket-propelled grenade. ISAF didn’t release the soldier’s nationality, but the majority of troops in the east are American.
Britain said one of its soldiers was killed and two others injured when an explosion struck their vehicle in southern Helmand province on Wednesday.
The U.S.-led coalition said 20 suspected Taliban militants were killed Wednesday after a failed ambush on coalition and Afghan troops in Kandahar province.
South Korea condemns Taliban “brutality”
South Korea’s government condemned the killing of one of 23 South Korean hostages being held in Afghanistan by Taliban militants.
South Korea denounces “the brutality of these militant forces and urges them yet again to return our people,” Baek Jong-Chun, the presidential security adviser, said Wednesday in Seoul. “Harming innocent civilians cannot be justified by any reason, and we will never tolerate such an inhumane action.”
The government plans to send a special envoy to Kabul to work with the Afghan administration to try to ensure the safe and immediate return of the remaining hostages, Baek said.
The hostages are members of a Protestant church group on a 10-day relief mission. Most are women in their 20s and 30s, some of them nurses and teachers.
South Korea, which has about 200 soldiers in Afghanistan, plans to withdraw the force by the end of the year as previously scheduled, Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon said Sunday.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
