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DUBAI : The Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera on Monday ran footage of a group of people it said were the South Korean hostages held by the Taliban militia in Afghanistan.
In silent footage lasting less than one minute, which would be the first to show the hostages since their capture, Asian-looking women in the group were shown seated with their heads covered in headscarves and appearing weakened.
"We received the video today outside Afghanistan," an editorial team member of Al-Jazeera told AFP, without adding details.
The Taliban said on Monday it had shot dead another of the 23 South Koreans kidnapped on July 19, after its deadlines expired for the government to free prisoners, although there was no immediate confirmation of the claim.
The hostage, said to have been executed in a remote part of the southern province of Ghazni, would be the second killed in by the militants, who last week gunned down the leader of the Christian aid group - a 42-year-old pastor.
"We set several deadlines and the Afghan government did not pay attention to our deadlines," Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP after a tense day during which government negotiators admitted that talks had so far failed.
Ahmadi said the body had been left in Ghazni's Qarabagh area, about 140 kilometres south of Kabul, where the pastor's bullet-riddled body was also dumped. His body arrived in South Korea on Monday.
The South Korean church group was captured in Qarabagh while travelling by bus on a key highway from the troubled southern city of Kandahar where they had officially been on an aid mission.
In a telephone interview with CBS television, a South Korean woman in the group begged for help last week. "We are in a very difficult time. Please help us," said the woman, who told CBS that her name was Yo Cyun-ju.
CBS said it interviewed Yo on Wednesday, after an interview was arranged with a Taliban commander. She spoke in Korean and an Afghan dialect of Farsi, the network added.
"All of us are sick and in very bad condition," she said, begging the South Korean government and the international community to make a deal with the Taliban to win their freedom. - AFP/de
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