Police discovered the body of a second South Korean hostage in central Afghanistan, and the Taliban threatened on Tuesday to kill more captives if their demands were not met by a new deadline. The new deadline set is Wednesday noon. Later in the day, the Taliban said two women among the 21 South Korean hostages were so ill that they might die. “Their condition is very bad. We don’t have enough medicines.,” said Yousuf Ahmadi, main spokesperson of the group. The Taliban had earlier said that 17 of the captives are ill.South Korea pleaded with the international community to set aside the normal practice of refusing to cave in to hostage-takers’ demands, urging a peaceful resolution. Relatives of some of the 21 remaining hostages appealed for US help in freeing their loved ones.The comments came after Afghan officials found the body of Shim Sung-min (29), a former information technology worker who was volunteering with the South Korean church group on an aid mission to Afghanistan.He was killed on Monday after two deadlines given by the Taliban demanding the release of insurgent prisoners passed with no action. Last week, the church group’s leader, Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu, was fatally shot in unclear circumstances.A purported Taliban spokesperson, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Taliban leaders decided to kill Shim because the government had not met their demands to trade prisoners for the Christian volunteers, who were in their 13th day of captivity on Tuesday. “The Kabul and Korean governments are lying and cheating. They did not meet their promise of releasing Taliban prisoners,” he said.
