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Korean hostages get medicine
05/08/2007 19:45 - (SA)
Ghazni - Afghan doctors
delivered medicines on Sunday for 21 South Koreans kidnapped by
Taliban rebels in Afghanistan more than two weeks ago.
The head of a private Afghan clinic said his team had
dropped more than $1 200 worth of antibiotics, pain killers,
vitamin tablets and heart pills in an area of desert in the
Qarabagh district of Ghazni province as instructed by the
rebels.
"This is a big achievement. Among the Koreans are doctors
who know how to use these medicines," Mohammad Hashim Wahaj told
reporters in Ghazni, the main town of the province where 23
South Korean church volunteers were snatched from a bus on July
20.
"It was a big risk, but we had to take the risk because it
is a humanitarian issue," he said.
The Taliban have killed two of their captives and are
threatening to kill the rest if the Afghan government fails to
release rebel prisoners. Kabul has refused to free jailed
Taliban, saying that would just encourage more kidnappings. Two hostages 'seriously ill'
Wahaj said he had been in contact with the kidnappers who
told him two of the remaining hostages were seriously ill. The
Taliban were willing to free those two hostages, he said, but
only if two Taliban prisoners were also freed.
The South Korean government is under intense domestic
pressure to secure the release of the hostages, but Seoul has
told the insurgents there is a limit to what it can do as it has
no power to free prisoners in Afghan jails.
A day before the Koreans were seized, Taliban rebels in
Wardak province, north of Ghazni, kidnapped two German engineers
and five Afghans.
One of the Germans had a heart attack and was shot dead
and one of the Afghans managed to escape. The rest are being
held by the Taliban who are demanding Berlin withdraw its 3 000
troops from Afghanistan. Germany refused to do so.
- Reuters
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