German hostage in Afghanistan appears in video

FE Team | Published: August 24, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

KABUL, Aug 23 (Reuters): A German engineer kidnapped by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan more than a month ago appeared in a video on Thursday appealing for help from his family and the German government to secure his release.
The man was one of two Germans and five Afghans the Taliban abducted in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, on July 18, the day before the insurgents seized 23 South Koreans from a bus in neighbouring Ghazni province.
"I live in the mountains with the Taliban 3,000 meters high and the Taliban try to negotiate with the Afghan government," said the man, who identified himself as Rudolph B, in the video shown on the private Afghan channel Tolo TV.
An off-camera whispered voice prompted him with the word "government."
"But the government not talk with the Taliban and the Taliban tried to get in connection with the embassy to release us, but if the time is over they want kill us," he said, speaking in English and lying on a ground sheet clutching his chest and coughing.
The other German suffered a heart attack soon after they were abducted and was then shot dead by his captors, who are demanding Berlin withdraw it's 3,300 troops from Afghanistan.
The German government has flatly refused to do so, but is under pressure from opposition parties and public opinion and faces a key vote in parliament next month on whether to renew the mandate for its force in Afghanistan.
"I ask my friends, my family and my two sons to increase the pressure on German government agencies to get us free," added the 62-year-old hostage, speaking in German.
"My medicine for my heart problem will have run out in three days time. And the time, the time is running."
He said he was being held with five Afghans captured with him. One of the Afghan captives pleaded in the video for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to try to secure their release.
"In the name of God, we are five Afghans and two Germans, abducted by Taliban, among us one of the Germans had a heart attack and has died, and the second German has diabetes, he has heart problems, he is sick," one of the Afghan hostages said.
"We Afghans demand the Karzai administration's help to release us because of our children," he said, standing with a group of men in front of a rocky outcrop.
"We are Afghans. The Taliban are also Afghans, we are sure there is possibility the Karzai government can release us."
Taliban kidnappers shot dead two of the South Korean hostages and freed two others, but the remaining 19 of the Korean church volunteers are still being held in small groups.
More than 6,500 people have been killed in Afghanistan in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.
The concentration of resources and troops in Iraq from 2002 onwards led to worsening security and slowed the pace of reconstruction and development in Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to make a comeback, diplomats and analysts say. Taliban insurgents are now extending their campaign of ambush, bombings and kidnapping beyond their southern heartlands to areas closer to the capital in an effort to demonstrate that the Afghan government and its Western allies are incapable of providing security to the people.