KABUL – An international Christian aid group yesterday denied Taliban accusations that its team of foreign medical workers killed in Afghanistan’s remote northeast had been spreading Christianity.
The bodies of 10 medical aid workers, eight foreigners and two Afghans were taken by helicopter from Badakshan province to Kabul yesterday, the US embassy said, confirming that six of the dead were Americans.
The International Assistance Mission (IAM) had said the victims were members of its 12-strong eye care team that had been working in Badakshan and neighbouring Nuristan.
IAM said the team consisted of six Americans, a German, a Briton and four Afghans. Five of the foreigners were men and three women. Two Afghans escaped alive.
On Saturday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings, saying the workers had been carrying bibles in Dari – one of Afghanistan’s two main languages – and were killed because they were promoting Christianity.
“The accusation is completely baseless, they were not carrying any bibles except maybe their personal bibles,” Dirk Frans, the executive director of IAM, told reporters.
“As an organisation we are not involved in proselytising at all.” The family of the British victim, Dr Karen Woo, also denied that she had been proselytising.
Dr Woo, who worked for the separate Bridge Afghanistan group, had said in a recent blog posting that she would act as the team doctor and run a mother-and-child clinic in Nuristan.
The IAM said the members of its eye care team were on their way back to Kabul when they were killed by unidentified gunmen. – (Reuters)