Taliban free eight South Korean hostages

The Taliban have reportedly freed eight of the 19 South Korean hostages held captive in Afghanistan for almost six weeks.

Four women and a man were handed over to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ghazni province, following the release of three women earlier in the day, witnesses said.

Wearing long, traditional headscarves, the three women who were first to be freed wept as they sat in an ICRC vehicle.

Taliban representative Qari Mohammad Bashir, who was involved in the negotiations to free the Koreans, said he hoped all would be free in two or three days.

Earlier, South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said the three women who were released first had been handed over to Korean custody and were apparently in normal health.

On July 19, 23 Saemmul Church members were seized from a bus in the region. Later that month, two male captives were killed by the Taliban, but two women were freed as a goodwill gesture during early negotiations.

South Korea has agreed to Taliban demands that its missionary groups pull out of Afghanistan as well as removing its troops out of the country - a decision which had been made before the abductions.

The National Council of Churches in Korea, one of the largest groups representing the country's Protestants, said in a statement it would abide by the government's pledge to end missionary work in Afghanistan.

"Through this incident, we will look back on the Korean churches' overseas volunteer and missionary work, and make this an opportunity to bring about more effective and safer volunteer and missionary work," it said.

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