“The gunmen asked for identity documents and when people showed them, they took away only Hazaras”, Sayed Mohebullah, a manager for the Ahmad Shah Abdali bus company, told Reuters.
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Armed men reportedly took the civilians out of the buses in which they were traveling and moved them to undisclosed locations.
No group or militant organization has claimed the responsibility for the incident yet, however, local residents blamed militants loyal to Islamic State (IS) or Daesh for the abduction.
The Hazara are a Persian-speaking, Shi’ite minority that has always been persecuted in Afghanistan.
Almost 1,600 civilians were killed and more than 3,300 others wounded in conflicts and Taliban-led attacks in the first half of the year, according to United Nations mission figures.
This year, the Hazara minority became the target of a new series of killings and kidnappings in Afghanistan.
Taliban militants are suspected to have killed the seven, who had been kidnapped in the neighboring Ghazni Province almost six months earlier.
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Afghan protesters carry a coffin containing the partially decapitated body of a member of the Hazara community in the capital, Kabul, November 11, 2015. The protest was dispersed by police firing warning shots over the crowd.
