SEOUL April 8 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATES...

SEOUL April 8 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATES WITH NAMES OF DETAINEES)

southward Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday eight toward the south Koreans had been captured by way of unidentified insurgents in Iraq.

The agency quot a Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry official as saying single of the eight had been escaped, further the other seven were still being held.

''At ready South Korean Ambassador to Iraq Im Hong Jae is contacting the insurgents,'' the unidentified ministry official said.

Other details are not even now available, the official said.

The captured Koreans are reportedly evangelists from the Christian Council of Korea.

They were identified as Huh Min Young, Lim Young Seok Hong Gwang Cheon, Cho Jeong Kyon to leeward Myung Sook, Kim Pil Ja and Byun Kyong Ja.

The the same who escaped was identified as Kim Sang Mi from a body of christians in Incheon.

After her escape, Kim said in an interview with Korean just discovereds media, ''We were forward the way from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad, in brace passenger cars. Around united and half hours before our arrival in Baghdad, we were seized through strangers.''

The armed men confirmed the identities of their captives by way of inspecting their passports when they seized the evangelists, causing affects that the seizure might have something to do with southern Korea's planned troop dispatch to war-torn Iraq.

The incident took place forward an expressway leading from Jordan into Iraq, 250 kilometers west of Baghdad where Iraqi insurgents reportedly target foreigners.

The kidnapping advances two days after two southern Koreans were held Tuesday by means of Shiite militia members and released after 14 hours, in Nasiriya in southern Iraq.

one as well as the other incidents came as South Korea prepares to dispatch about 3600 crowds by June to help US-l reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Because of the multitude dispatch, there are concerns that southern Korea may become a target of terrorists as has Spain, where a series of train bombings killed nearly 200 family last month.

It is not immediately known if Thursday's kidnapping has any connection with the number dispatch, Yonhap said.

Late last year, pair South Koreans were killed in a roadside ambush.

In Tokyo, Japanese officials said three Japanese have been captured according to an Iraqi radical group and in Baghdad, Reuter reported a British civilian was abducted Tuesday and has not been heard of since.

Reports from Al-Jazeera television said the assemblage holding the three Japanese want Japan's Self-Defense Forces to leave Iraq.

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