By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

Seven South Korean Christian ministers were detained by unidentified armed militias in Iraq on Thursday but were released nine hours later, a Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official said.
Eight were originally abducted but one escaped. The escapee is identified as Kim Sang-mi.

The ministry official said that on Thursday night Ambassador to Iraq Im Hong-jae was contacting the Iraqi militias for the release of the abducted Koreans.

The released South Koreans were known to be Christian ministers, including Revs. Huh Min-yong, Im Young-sok and Kim Pil-ja, who left Jordan for Iraq on Monday.

Rev. Kim Sang-mi, who escaped right after the detention, said in a telephone interview with MBC, a local broadcaster, that they were seized about 250 kilometers west of Baghdad while moving in two cars to the Iraqi capital from Jordan.

The South Korean government plans to send more than 3,000 troops to Iraq for peace and rehabilitation efforts. But the troop dispatch plan has faced growing public opposition as the security situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate.

Earlier this week, two South Korean civilians had been detained for about 14 hours by Shiite Muslim forces in a state of hostilities with Italian forces. They were released unharmed.

The detention of Korean people in Iraq will likely add fuel to the already heated debate in the nation, which will go through nationwide elections to form the next National Assembly. The issue dominated campaigning for the April 15 general elections on Thursday, with some opposition parties urging the government to review its troop deployment plan.

In the meantime, three Japanese including two journalists have also been taken hostage by insurgents in Iraq, who have threatened to kill them if Japan does not withdraw its troops from Iraq in three days, according to news agencies.

The reports cited the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera, which broadcast video footage of the captives, intimidated with a knife. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has set up an emergency operations room and was trying to confirm the report from local sources, NHK TV reported in Tokyo.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr