The Taliban has released 12 South Korean hostages in Afghanistan.
The ten women and two men, part of a group of 23 Christian volunteers kidnapped from a bus in Ghazni province on 19 July, were handed over to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in three different groups.
Two male hostages were killed by their captors early on in the crisis and two other women were freed as a gesture of goodwill during the negotiations.
The Taliban agreed to release all the hostages after South Korea said it would pull its troops out of Afghanistan.
Taliban representative Qari Mohammad Bashir, who was involved in the negotiations that led to the agreement to free the Koreans, said he hoped all would be free in two or three days.
South Korean government authorities said the agreement was on condition it withdraw its troops from Afghanistan within the year and stopped its nationals doing missionary work in Afghanistan.
The South Korean embassy in Kabul said the freed hostages would be flown home as soon as possible.
