October 20, 2003	Monday	Sha'aban 23, 1424

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KABUL, Oct 19: Some 42 Afghan children allegedly trafficked to Saudi Arabia over the past several years have been repatriated to Kabul, Minister for Social Affairs Noor Mohammad Qarqeen said Sunday.

The Saudi government arranged for the children — aged between four and 10 years — who had been living illegally in Makkah, to be returned on Thursday, he said.

Another 208 children, including some girls, are scheduled to arrive in Kabul in the next few days, the minister said.

Afghanistan’s Human Rights Commission believed the children were smuggled and abused in Saudi Arabia.

“Our initial investigation indicates that the majority of these children had been kidnapped and later smuggled to that country,” commission’s spokesman Nadir Nadiri said.

Mr Nadiri said some of the children told the commission that they had been living as slaves.

However, he said, so far there was no indication that they had been sexually abused.

Most of the children were from the northern Baghlan province. They have now been lodged in an orphanage run by the Social Affairs Ministry in Kabul.

The commission has launched a search for their families in Baghlan and the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, Nadiri said.—AFP