South Korea yesterday stood by plans to send 3,600 troops to Iraq despite rising violence there, but placed a "virtual ban" on travel by its citizens to Iraq after seven missionaries became the second group of South Koreans detained there this week by armed men.
After a snap meeting of the National Security Council to assess the worsening Iraqi violence, the government evoked its strictest travel restrictions against Iraq, labeling the country a "specially designated country."
The missionaries were released unharmed on Thursday after they pretended to be doctors and nurses and even gave their captors massages, the Foreign Ministry said.
"The armed men initially mistook the missionaries as spies, made threatening remarks and blindfolded them," it said.
"But when the missionaries introduced themselves as doctors and nurses, as people who came to help Iraqis, and demonstrated a sports massage on the armed men, their attitude turned friendly," the ministry said.
The captors returned confiscated passports and luggage to the South Koreans, gave them food and escorted them all the way to the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, the ministry said.
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