South Korea has become a major player in international humanitarian relief — which the Taliban in Afghanistan recently took advantage of by seizing 23 Korean hostages, reports The Wall Street Journal.

One of the hostages was found dead not far from where the aid workers are being held, raising concerns about the fate of the rest of the workers.

Only the United States sends more charity workers abroad than South Korea, which currently has 10,000 spread around the world, says the newspaper. Most of them arrange travel through churches. (Forty percent of the population is Christian.)

Indeed, though the Korean government reports that the 18 women and five men taken prisoner were not doing evangelical work per se, the group’s church sponsored the trip. The Taliban seized them to force the withdrawal of the country’s 200 troops in Afghanistan.

Read a story in The Chronicle about the perils of aid work in warring countries.

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