Mr. Kazuya Ito, a volunteer aid worker, was kidnapped last Tuesday along with his driver by a group of armed men believed to be close to the Taliban in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. His bullet- riddled body was found the next day.
Since December 2003, Mr. Ito had been engaged in an agricultural project to help local people. Before departing for Afghanistan, he had told his parents to bury his body in the soil of that country if something happened to him. Although lofty words are seldom translated into action, Mr. Ito was clearly a man who meant what he said. His dedication to the Afghan people was genuine and he willingly risked his life for their welfare.
Mr. Ito, 31, of Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture, studied raising vegetables at a junior college before joining Peshawar-kai, a nongovernmental organization. Under the leadership of Dr. Tetsu Nakamura, who has provided medical and other services in Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than 20 years, the NGO started a project in 2003 to build a 30-km irrigation channel in the desert outside Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province. A 19-km portion has been completed. More than 10,000 local people have returned to their homes since the land became arable again.