Two Frenchmen held hostage separately in Afghanistan have been freed, officials said on Monday, with one man found by local security personnel in a Taliban-troubled area near Kabul.
Pierre Borghi was kidnapped in late November last year and released in Wardak Province outside the capital on Sunday night, Afghan officials said, while the second released man, who has not been named, was taken captive in Kabul on Jan. 27.
Officials in Kabul who declined to be identified said that the two men had been held separately and gave no explanation of why they had been released on the same day.
“Two of our compatriots kidnapped in Afghanistan have been released. We welcome their freedom,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.
Borghi, 29, worked in Afghanistan from 2011 to last year for French charity Solidarites International and returned to Kabul last year to take photographs and try to establish himself as a photographer.
“Yes, [Borghi] has been released, he was found by our guards in Maidan Shar town last night at around 9pm,” Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) director Shoib Sharifi said.
The APPF is a government-run security group founded in 2009 to provide protection for international and domestic clients across Afghanistan.
Sharifi said the Frenchman had escaped.
“He was found near one of our check posts in Maidan Shar. Our guards brought him to Kabul,” Sharifi said.
Borghi was taken to the Afghan Ministry of the Interior and later handed over to the French embassy.
Wardak Province is a hotbed of the Taliban-led insurgency, but there has been no claim for the kidnapping. The details of how he was abducted are unknown.
Borghi’s personal Web site said he trained as a sociologist and urban planner and moved into photography after several years working for humanitarian organizations.
The second released man worked for the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED), a Paris-based non-governmental organization founded in 1993.
The 30-year-old was taken captive in January in Kabul, when the unmarked ACTED car he was traveling to work in was blocked by another vehicle. Four armed gunmen then dragged him from the car.
“ACTED is very happy about the release of one of its employees in Afghanistan, he is fine,” its spokesman Adrien Tomarchio said, declining to give the man’s name.
There was also no claim of responsibility for his kidnapping.
Westerners have been taken hostage regularly in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion brought down the Taliban regime in late 2001, with victims often kidnapped by criminals and sold on to militants.
Two French journalists were captured while covering the conflict in December 2009 and finally freed in June 2011 after 18 months in captivity.
One of the men, television reporter Herve Ghesquiere, later suggested that an exchange deal involving money and prisoners secured his release from the Taliban.
The French and Afghan governments both denied that a ransom was paid for the release of Ghesquiere and cameraman Stephane Taponier.
The last known foreign hostage incident was at the end of last month, when a German man working for the German government-owned aid group GIZ was freed after being kidnapped for less than 24 hours in northeastern Afghanistan.
The man was taken by suspected Taliban militants in the mountainous Badakhshan Province while out jogging with his dog, police said.
In June last year, NATO special forces rescued one British and one Nigerian woman held hostage in a cave in Badakhshan.
The women, who worked for Swiss-based charity Medair, and two Afghan colleagues had been held for about a week before they were freed unharmed.
In August 2010, the Taliban claimed responsibility for killing eight medical aid workers in Badakhshan, saying they were Christian missionaries.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in