A senior official from South Korea traveled to Afghanistan July 26 to try to save 22 Korean Christians taken hostage by Taliban fighters.
The kidnappers killed the group’s leader, 42-year-old Bae Hyung-kyu, July 25.
The group, including 18 young women, was abducted July 19 when Taliban guerrillas blocked their bus as it made its way from Kandahar to Kabul.
According to Asia Sentinel, the hostages belong to Saemmul Presbyterian Church, located near Seoul, South Korea. Church leaders told the Sentinel its members were not doing religious work but were providing social services and aiding relief efforts in the war-torn country.
According to the Sentinel, Korean missions workers often operate in areas of extreme danger in Africa, the Middle East, China and North Korea.
More than 16,000 Korean missionaries work abroad, the paper said, sometimes crossing borders illegally and gaining criticism for “failing to understand the seriousness of the security situation in Afghanistan.”
One killed already
Before his departure for Afghanistan, Baek Jong-chun, South Korea’s chief presidential secretary for security affairs, told The Associated Press (AP) the kidnappers “will be held accountable for taking the life of a Korean citizen.”
Baek arrived in Afghanistan July 27.
On July 26, Reuters reported that the Taliban had given the Afghan government a list of prisoners they wanted freed in exchange for the Korean Christians.
A purported Taliban spokesman warned July 27 that some of the 22 South Korean hostages were in bad health, saying hours after the kidnappers’ latest deadline passed the captives were crying and worried about their future, according to the AP.
At press time, a Foreign Ministry official in Seoul, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity, said the captives were still believed to be safe and that officials were trying to get medicine and other items delivered to them.
“We hope we will have a good result, but I don’t know if they will be released today (July 27). I don’t think they will be,” said Shirin Mangal, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province, where the Koreans were taken.
Bae, the pastor of Saemmul Presbyterian, was found shot to death on a highway between Kabul and Kandahar in Ghazni Province, according to the Sentinel.
His body was later brought to an American air base, reports said.
(ABP)
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