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A group of five Christian leaders returned home from Iraq on Tuesday. They entered the Middle East country without permission from the government, but later were persuaded to come back home by the Korean embassy there. In the group, two people -- including a pastor identified by the surname Kim -- had entered Iraq previously to join with seven other missionaries who would eventually be captured in Fallujah and later released. Pastor Kim said at a meeting with reporters they had gone to Iraq with the determination of not returning home again, and they would continue their missionary work through martyrdom, hinting that they would try to enter Iraq again. The pastors¡¯ remarks are raising controversy.
The group arrived in Amman, Jordan, in the afternoon of Oct. 28 and rented a car with a driver at US$500. They headed for Mosul via Baghdad overland. The Christian group passed through dangerous situations like a battle between U.S forces and Iraqi insurgents and arrived in Mosul in the afternoon of Oct. 29. They were rejected by Iraqi Christians, who urged the group to return home immediately if they didn't want to kill either themselves or Iraqi Christians. Iraqi Christians warned the group that Iraqi terrorist groups already had information about their visit to Iraq.
With the warning, the Korean Christian group arrived in Baghdad by their rented car at 5:00 p.m. on Oct. 29. Three local hotels refused to let the Korean group stay, saying if they accepted Korean guests, Iraqi militiamen would blow up the hotels and terrorists would come to behead Korean visitors. The Korean Christian group barely lodged in the fourth hotel identified as A.
The Korean government discovered the Christian group had entered Iraq right before the group arrived in Baghdad.
The Korean embassy in Jordan directly contacted the taxi driver who took the Christian group to Baghdad and gave the Korean embassy in Iraq information about the group and their hotel. Korean embassy officials, and 30 Korean and Iraqi soldiers visited the hotel at around midnight and persuaded the group to move to the embassy. Pastor Kim said he had been later informed that foreigners were often kidnapped in the neighborhood of their hotel and a reward of US$250,000 was offered for one Korean. Without the embassy¡¯s swift action, they would not have survived the night, said Kim. Pastor Kim and his colleagues left Iraq for Jordan on Oct. 30 and arrived in Korea on Tuesday.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Korean Christian group wore necklaces inscribed with their name and a phrase in Arabic asking that their bodies be used for experiments if they were killed. One pastor of the group wore red clothes and a hat with a Korean national flag attached.
Pastor Kim told a Chosun Ilbo reporter that Korean embassy officials had not even slept to protect his group and prepared a plane for them. Although as a Korean, he was proud of the officials¡¯ efforts, he would continue the missionary work through martyrdom.
The government thinks the five Christian leaders might attempt to enter Iraq again and is considering taking measures to ban them from leaving Korea after consulting with related agencies. Lee Joon-kyu, director general of the ministry's Overseas Residents and Consular Affairs Bureau, said that it was regretful the pastors had recklessly attempted to enter Iraq, despite the government¡¯s strong recommendations against it, including the foreign minister and defense minister¡¯s joint statement in August. The government would come up with effective measures to block entrance into this dangerous country by revising laws, said Lee.
(Lee Ha-won, may2@chosun.com )
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