KABUL, Afghanistan
At least 10 Hazara tribe members were kidnapped and five of them subsequently freed on Sunday in Afghanistan, Ghazni province's deputy governor said.
Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy governor of the central-eastern province of Ghazni, said that two vehicles were stopped and 10 Hazara tribe members were abducted from among the passengers by unidentified criminals.
A Persian-speaking and Shiite ethnic minority group, the Hazara mainly live in central Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two weeks ago, another incident took place where at least 31 other Hazaran people were kidnapped in the south of the country.
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings yet.
Since 2008, several hundred Hazara have been killed in steadily worsening targeted violence by Sunni militants in the region. Two bombings in Quetta, Pakistan, in January and February 2013 targeted the Hazara community and killed at least 180 people.
