BERLIN: A German aid worker who was kidnapped in Pakistan over two years ago has been released in neighbouring Afghanistan, Berlin said on Friday.

“The government is very relieved that a German national who was kidnapped more than two years ago in Pakistan has been freed in Afghanistan,” a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

He was now in the care of the German government, receiving counselling and was “doing well under the circumstances”, said the spokeswoman, adding that an international “partner” had helped set him free.

Newspaper Bild said that Germany’s KSK special forces were involved in the handover of the aid worker for the group Welthungerhilfe (World Hunger Aid), who was identified only as Bernd M.

He was taken in January 2012 in Pakistan, and handed over at a mosque on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul, after his kidnappers had forced him to march through regions of eastern Afghanistan, the report said.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2014