KABUL - Two Germans who disappeared nearly three weeks ago while hiking in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan were shot to death, a police general said yesterday.
General Sher Ahmad Maladani, police chief of Afghanistan’s eastern Parwan province, said yesterday that a rescue team reached the bodies in the late afternoon. He said the two men had bullet wounds in their chests, but it’s not clear when they died.
He said he had asked the Ministry of Interior and German army for helicopters to help get the bodies down from the mountains. It took the rescue team four hours to reach the bodies on foot from the main road.
Police at the scene said they could not recover the bodies yesterday because of darkness and would try again in the morning.
“They have several bullet holes to the chest. We are not sure when they died, but the bodies are in good condition,’’ Maladani said.
The area where the bodies were found is extremely rugged and remote. Police General Rajab, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, said the bodies were inside cloth sacks.
Parwan governor Abdul Basir Salangi said they were discovered under a large boulder about 2 1/2 miles from the south end of the Salang Pass, where they began their hike on Aug. 19. He had no other details, and it remained unclear who found the bodies. The area is inhabited mostly by nomadic shepherds who live in tents.
The region where the Germans disappeared is not a Taliban area. Last month Afghan police speculated the two men could have gotten lost in the high mountains or may have been the victims of a crime. The agency they were working for has not been named.
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