The Christian volunteers flew out of Kabul on a chartered United Nations plane headed for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from where they were to continue their flight to Seoul, South Korea, airport and other officials said. They had reportedly been staying at a five-star hotel in the center of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, under heavy protection.
News of their imminent arrival in Seoul, expected on Sunday, September 2, came as the South Korean government denied media reports that it paid Taliban militants millions of dollars in ransom. Citing unidentified sources in Afghanistan, Japan’s respected Asahi Shimbun newspaper said South Korea paid $2 million to secure the release of the 19 hostages, while Arab television network Al Jazeera reported the South Korean government likely paid as much as $40 million.
Afghan mediators allegedly persuaded South Korea’s ambassador in Kabul that there was no other way to end the six-week kidnap ordeal.
GOVERNMENT DENIAL
Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon Tuesday flatly denied the allegation, saying there were no other conditions for the release of the hostages "officially" discussed or agreed to, South Korea’s official Yonhap News Aagency reported. So far South Korean officials only admitted they had agreed to halt missionary work and withdraw 200 South Korean troops, as planned, by the end of the year.
The 19 hostages were part of a group of 23 South Korean church volunteers who were
kidnapped in Afghanistan, where Christians are forbidden from proselytizing. Two of them were killed a week apart from each other, including the group’s 42-year-old leader Bae Hyun-kyu, a youth pastor at the hostages’ home church, and fellow Christian missionary, Shim Sung Min, who was 29.
The killings were an attempt by the Taliban to force the release of prisoners, something the Afghan government refused.
Before the group of 19 was released, two other female hostages were already freed, as a "goodwill gesture" the militant Taliban group said at the time.
As they left Afghanistan, two of the people who were held hostage offered their "apologies" to the South Korean people and government for "causing trouble" and agony. "I’ve had sleepless nights, thinking of what we have caused to the country," said Yu Kyeong-sik in comments published by South Korea’s Yohap News Agency. "I am very sorry."
They escaped carnage Friday, August 31, as Afghan officials said a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near an entrance to the Kabul International Airport, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding about 10 others. The bomber reportedly rammed the car into a NATO vehicle but the explosives did not go off immediately. The car sped off and then exploded, hitting a group of Afghan soldiers waiting to fly to Italy for military training, the Voice Of America (VOA) network reported, citing several sources.
Also at least 10 civilians were killed Friday, August 31, when a barrage of rockets targeting a US military base in eastern Afghanistan hit a nearby village, VOA said. Several others were wounded in the attack in Kunar province believed to be the work of Taleban militants.
NEVER FORGET
Yu, 55, said he would never forget the day the Christian aid group left Kabul for Kandahar on July 19. The driver allegedly picked up two locals, who stopped the bus, "by firing their guns," he explained in the first account of what happened since the ordeal began.
Seo Myung-Hwa, 29, said the bus driver who was originally scheduled to drive them from Kabul to Kandahar told them he needed surgery, but introduced what them to what he called a reliable substitute. "So, a different driver came, and we decided to go ahead with the trip," she explained.
However trouble began after the two locals stopped the bus amid the sound of shooting. "The man sitting at the front pointed his gun at the driver and told him to stop the bus," Yu added. 
"When the driver ignored him, he opened fire and the bus stopped. The Taliban told him to move the bus to the side, and fired a bullet into a tire. Then two armed men came up and beat the driver, and told all of us to get off."
Yu explained that he and Je Chang-Hee were driven away on a motorbike for about 10 minutes along an unpaved road to a village, "where we saw a tubby boss sitting under a tree with his RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade] beside him. We were told to go and drink tea." Other members of his group were brought to the village later, and tried to communicate with the gunmen in broken English.
ARMED MEN
"About 10 men armed with AK rifles pushed us into a prayer hall, and our baggage was ransacked and mobiles phones and cameras seized. They claimed they were plainclothes police officers, and were trying to protect us from Al Qaeda. They pushed a notebook computer, cameras, camcorders, and mobile phones into two sacks, claiming they would be returned later," Yu said.
The 23-strong party was then split into five groups. Yu said his own group changed places 12 times, moving from village to village in the dead of night by motorbike or on foot. "I was very nervous, because I heard that they used to kill men," he said.
The hostages, released in separate groups on Wednesday, August 29, and Thursday, August 30, had a tearful reunion, some learning for the first time that two colleagues captured with them on July 19 were shot dead, a South Korean diplomat said.
"They wept. They hugged. They were shocked at the news of the two men who were killed. They didn’t know about that," the diplomat told French News Agency AFP on condition of anonymity.
The release was an answer to prayers of the hostages and their Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, near Seoul, but they were expected to be welcomed with mixed emotions in South Korea.
"Public opinion has turned against the missionary movement," said Steve Moon, director of the Korea Research Institute for Missions, in published comments. "It is a rather emotional response." South Korean churches have been criticized for sending volunteers into dangerous situations where they can face persecution.
MORE VICTIMS
The two men the Taliban killed weren’t the first South Korean missionaries to die: One was
beheaded in Iraq three years ago, and another was gunned down by a gang in Kenya on March 31, the USA Today newspaper reported.
The South Korean governmen has threatened harsh punishments to those still trying to travel to Afghanistan for missionary work. Yet, despite the setbacks, South Korean Christians sound defiant.
Seoul artist Kim Seon Sook had been praying daily for the hostages to be released in Afghanistan. "The two martyrs and the rest of them will be the foundation stone for spreading the gospel to every corner of the earth," she told USA Today. "We are not trying to convert people," added Seoul dentist Cho Seong Su, who has done aid work with Christian groups in Afghanistan. "We just want to deliver the love of Jesus; but this is not the right time to risk martyrdom."
South Korean Christians are eager to spread the Gospel. At the end of 2006, 15,000 South Korean missionaries were at work in dozens of countries around the world from China to the USA, nearly double the 8,100 abroad in 2000 and up from just 93 in 1979, according to the Korea Research Institute for Missions.
Christianity was introduced to the traditionally Buddhist and Confucian Korean Peninsula more than two centuries ago, but especially in the past 100 years have Koreans embraced Christianity with enthusiasm. Over 26 percent of South Koreans are Christian, putting the faith ahead of all other religions, including Buddhism, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (With reporting by BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and Eric Leijenaar. BosNewsLife Anti-Terrorism Task Force: Covering the Threats of Our Time.
