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Tokyo: A body that appeared to be Japanese was found on Wednesday by searchers in Afghanistan looking for a kidnapped aid worker, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.
"Local police found a body believed to be a Japanese male. The body is currently being transferred to Jalalabad," Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichita Yamamoto told a news conference. He said he couldn't confirm any other details.
Officials from the Japanese Embassy in Kabul were traveling to Jalalabad to confirm the identity of the body and hoped to do so by Wednesday evening, a Foreign Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Kazuya Ito, 31, was abducted near the city of Jalalabad early on Tuesday, according to the ministry. He was an agriculture specialist with the group Peshawar-kai, which runs clinics in the region. The head of the aid group said Ito was kidnapped by four men.
The Foreign Ministry said searchers began looking for Ito in the region early on Wednesday morning after failing to locate him on Tuesday.
Yamamoto said a high-ranking Afghan official on Tuesday informed the Japanese Embassy in Kabul that Ito was released. But the Afghan government later told the Japanese Embassy that the information was wrong.
Ito was the first Japanese to be kidnapped in Afghanistan, which has been rocked by increasing violence in recent months, the ministry said.
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