Dutch aid worker kidnapped in Kabul is released after 81 days

A Dutch aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan 81 days ago has been freed by her captors.

Anja de Beer, who was taken in Kabul where she ran the Swiss aid agency Helvetas, told Nos radio her kidnappers were after money.

‘They said I would be freed when that had been sorted out,’ she told the broadcaster. However, De Beer said she was told by the embassy nothing had been paid for her release.

De Beer said she did not know who her kidnappers were but they claimed to have links to the Taliban. ‘But they could as easily have been a criminal gang,’ she said.

Nos correspondent Joeri Boom said sources told him a criminal group was behind the kidnapping. If she had been taken by the Taliban, the kidnapping could have ended very differently, he said, pointing out that five Afghans who worked for Save the Children were kidnapped and murdered in April.

De Beer said she had been chained by her feet but apart from that was well treated and had ‘good food and drink’.

She now plans to return to the Netherlands to visit family but will then go back to Afghanistan. ‘No, I am not afraid,’ she told the broadcaster. ‘This work is risky.’