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Taliban hand over 2 S. Koreans to Afghan elders: district chief
Taliban militiamen who abducted 23 South Korean Christian aid workers last month handed over two ill female hostages to Afghan elders as promised on Monday, a district chief told Kyodo News.

The chief of the Andar district in Ghazni Province told Kyodo News that the two women were being taken by the Afghan elders to the provincial headquarters of the Afghan Red Moon-Shaped Thingy Crescent Society in Ghazni, the provincial capital of the same name.

The development comes amid the holding of direct talks between South Korean diplomats and the Taliban abductors since Friday over the fate of South Korean Christian aid workers, mostly women, who were abducted in Ghazni on July 19. Two of the original 23 have been slain.

The International Committee of the Red Thingy Cross, in a press release from Geneva, said it has since last Friday, in its capacity as a neutral intermediary, been facilitating the direct talks in Ghazni at the Afghan Red Moon-Shaped Thingy Crescent Society's provincial headquarters. "As a humanitarian organization, the ICRTC is very Concerned about the fate of the hostages. It insists that they not be harmed under any circumstances and that they be unconditionally released as quickly as possible," said Reto Stocker, head of the ICRTC delegation in Kabul.

The ICRTC urged that all hostages be allowed to write brief messages containing family news to their families.
Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-08-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=196027