MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Unknown gunmen shot dead a German aid worker in northern Afghanistan on Thursday after letting three Afghans he was travelling with go free, Afghan officials said.
The man's organisation, German Agro Action (Deutsche Welthungerhilfe), confirmed he had been shot in the northern province of Sari Pul but said it had not verified he had been killed.
The group had been travelling by vehicle to assess newly built schools and bridges, a media officer in Berlin said. Governor Sayed Iqbal Munib said they were stopped by armed men.
"They were threatened and the Afghans were released. They kept the German national and he was killed later," he said.
"The Afghans reported to the district police and as police approached the site of the incident, the foreign national was killed."
The Afghan interior ministry confirmed that a German national had been killed.
"This is the work of bandits not Taliban," spokesman Zemarai Bashary said in Kabul. "Police have launched a heavy search in the area to find the bandits."
The Taliban are waging an insurgency that is focused on southern and eastern Afghanistan. An Italian journalist and two Afghan colleagues have been held by Taliban fighters since Sunday and are accused of being spies.
The north of Afghanistan is relatively stable but sees factional fighting and banditry. Gunmen shot dead two German journalists in the northern province of Baghlan in October in a case that has never been publicly resolved.
A media officer for Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, which is working on food security and infrastructure development in Afghanistan, said the group had been told the man was shot but "we still don't know if he is really dead".
"He was driving with local staff members in two cars and two people with weapons stopped the car and shouted at the staff, saying 'Why are you working with German people,'" Stefanie Koop said.
"They sent them away and they heard shots and when they came back they say saw him lying in the car, or on the floor, and they thought he was dead." He was taken to hospital in Sari Pul.
