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5 Humanitarian Workers Abducted in Badakhshan
[Tolo News] Two foreign doctors and their three Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in a remote area of northern Afghanistan Tuesday evening, local officials said.The group, who work for non-government organization Medair, were stopped by a group of gunnies while travelling on horseback between the Yaftali and Ragh districts of the country's furthest north-eastern province of Badakhshan, provincial front man Abdul Maroof Rasekh told TOLOnews on Wednesday. The incident was reported as a kidnapping by the humanitarian organization, which has not released the names of those believed to be kidnapped, Rasekh said. According to a security report, five Medair staff members - two international females and three Afghan males - along with two hired guides were stopped as they left a village in the Yaftali Sufla District by five or six gunnies believed to be members of an "armed opposition group" from Shahri Buzorg district. The report released by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said the gunnies sent away the two hired horsemen and then moved with the five staff members towards the Dawang area of Shahri Buzorg district. ANSO said the incident was "an exceptionally strong outlier" for the district, province, and region. Local police have started a search operation in the two districts, Rasekh said. No group, including the Taliban, has grabbed credit for the kidnapping. Posted by: Fred 2012-05-24 |
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