FACTBOX: Foreign hostages in Afghanistan

(Reuters) - Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan freed two South Korean women hostages on Monday, and they were handed over to South Korean officials in Ghazni, an ICRC spokesman said.

Following are details of reported kidnappings of foreigners in Afghanistan since 2006.

* March 2006 - Taliban insurgents say they killed four hostages and dumped their bodies in the Kandahar-Helmand area in southern Afghanistan. The four were abducted on March 11. An official at the Ecolog services company in Kabul said the four hostages, all from Macedonia, were employees.

* April 2006 - An Indian engineer, identified as K. Suryanarayan, is found beheaded on April 30 not far from where he was kidnapped near the main road between Qalat and Ghazni. The Taliban claim responsibility.

* October 2006 - Gabriele Torsello, a London-based photojournalist who is a Muslim, is kidnapped on October 12 by gunmen after he left by bus from Lashkar-Gah, capital of Helmand province in the south. He is released unharmed on November 3.

* March 2007 - The Taliban capture Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo of La Repubblica and two Afghans in Helmand province. He is handed over to the Italian embassy on March 19 but his Afghan driver is beheaded and his translator is killed on April 8.

* April 2007 - The Taliban say they have kidnapped Eric Damfreville, a Frenchman working for the Terre d'Enfance aid organization, his local driver and two other Afghans in Nimroz province. He is released on May 11. A French woman hostage who also worked for Terre d'Enfance is released in late April by the Taliban after three weeks in captivity.

* July 2007 - Two German engineers are kidnapped by the Taliban while traveling in Wardak province, southwest of the capital, Kabul. One German is killed, apparently by his captors. The Taliban later say they are still holding the other German along with four Afghans.

- A group of 23 South Koreans from a church organization in Bundang, outside Seoul, are kidnapped from a bus traveling from Kabul to Kandahar. On July 25, a church pastor who was leading the group is shot dead. Five days later another male South Korean hostage is shot. On August 13 the Taliban release two of the female hostages. They now hold 19 hostages, 16 of them women.