'South Korean hostage' pleads for help in call with AFP

KANDAHAR (AFP) - A woman said by the Taliban to be one of 21 South Korean hostages pleaded for help in an emotional telephone conversation with AFP, saying the captives are ill and frightened.

"They threaten us, they tell us they'll kill us," the weeping woman said in the call set up by Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi.

"It's difficult, they're very dangerous," she said speaking at times in accented English and at times in Dari, an Afghan dialect.

One of her purported captors telephoned an AFP journalist from an unknown location and then handed the phone to the woman, who introduced herself as Sing Jo-Hin.

There was no immediate way of verifying her name or that she was one of 23 South Korean church aid workers kidnapped in the southern province of Ghazni on July 19.

The Taliban has since shot dead two hostages, both men, and warned that more captives will be killed unless some of its fighters are released from jail, a demand the Afghan government has rejected.

"Most of us are sick now," the woman said. "Our condition is worsening every passing day.

"We're not used to the weather," she said, referring to soaring summer heat. "We can't eat anything and we can't sleep too. And we miss Korea and our homes."

The woman urged UN chief Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korea foreign minister, and Pope Benedict XVI to help win their release.

She said the South Korean government should also keep up its efforts. "They must try to free us. They should talk to Taliban," she said, also pleading for help from the Afghan government.

"We want the world church to pray for us so we are freed soon," she added.

The woman said the group had been split up and that she was with three other hostages. "I don't know about the others, if they're alive," she said.

The Taliban has previously allowed a purported hostage to speak to media in a move seen aimed at increasing the pressure for its demands to be met as talks with the government appear to be making little headway.

Kabul has vowed not to release Taliban prisoners in exchange for hostages after such a deal in March, which was widely criticised as an encouragement to militant and criminal kidnappers.