The Taliban terrorist group is reportedly holding two foreign journalists and locals working with them in Afghanistan, according to VOA.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed the news but did not name the journalists, the Afghans, or who exactly detained them, VOA said Friday, adding the reason behind the apparent detention was unknown.
“Two journalists on assignment with UNHCR and Afghan nationals working with them have been detained in Kabul. We are doing our utmost to resolve the situation in coordination with others,” the agency wrote in a social media post:
The organization added it would not make any further comments “given the nature of the situation.”
CBS News identified one of the journalists as Andrew North, a former BBC correspondent who frequently travels to the country to report on its humanitarian crisis.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed authorities were investigating.
“We have received information about this and are trying to confirm whether they have been detained or not,” he commented.
Last month, the country’s Taliban-controlled central bank announced it received $32 million from the United Nations, apparently to pay for humanitarian aid, Breitbart News reported:
In December, the U.N. reportedly agreed to begin sending cash to Afghanistan every week to fund humanitarian efforts, ramping the amounts up to $20 million per week by March 2022. The cash aid program is intended to stabilize the Afghan economy by infusing it with dollars to stave off a liquidity crisis. Afghanistan’s banking system went into crisis mode after President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal and the Taliban takeover in August.
Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) denounced the reported detentions and called on the terrorist group to stop attacking journalists, according to VOA.
“Andrew North and the other unidentified journalist should be freed immediately and allowed to continue their work, and the Taliban must halt its repeated attacks on and harassment of journalists,” Steven Butler, the group’s Asia program coordinator, stated.