Aid workers kidnapped in Afghanistan

25/06/2006 - 16:13:33
Five Afghan aid workers, including three who worked for a Swedish aid agency, have been abducted in eastern Afghanistan, a police official said today.

The five – two doctors and an employee of the aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and two local government workers – were kidnapped on Thursday while driving in the province of Nuristan, said Ghalamullah Nuristani, the provincial deputy police chief.

Abdallah Fahim, a spokesman for the Public Health Ministry in Kabul, said that the five were still alive and that police and Afghan troops were looking for them.

“The elders and people of the area are co-operating,” Nuristani said. “They will help us win their freedom very soon.”