Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a press conference at the Presidential palace in Kabul on May 11, 2015.

Nineteen Afghan men from among 31 kidnapped by gunmen from a bus in February were freed on Monday by their captors, and the rest could be released soon, officials said.

The men are Hazaras, members of a largely Shi’ite Muslim ethnic minority persecuted under the Taliban movement’s Sunni Islamist rule, although sectarian violence has been rare since the Taliban was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The kidnapping increased anxiety among the Hazaras, who fear becoming targets in a new, sectarian phase of Afghanistan’s long war with Taliban insurgents and other Islamist militants.

President Ashraf Ghani said government efforts led to the release of the 19 passengers. “No ransom was paid and no individuals, who have been in Afghan jails because of crimes they have committed, have been exchanged for the release of our countrymen,” Ghani told reporters on Monday.

He said 12 more would be freed soon.

“They are in good health…,” said Zafar Sharif, governor of a district in the eastern Afghan province of Ghazni where the men were handed over to community elders who had worked to win their release.

The freed men had been taken to a safe location, he added.

In February, gunmen in the southern province of Zabul forced 31 men off the bus in which they were travelling. Witnesses at the time said they appeared to have been picked because they are Hazara. Later, the captives were shifted to Ghazni.

“Now we are working to transfer these 19 people to Kabul safely and efforts are on to pave the way for 12 others to get free soon,” said Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, a deputy governor of Ghazni.

Neither official would elaborate on the deal to free the men.

The Zabul kidnapping was followed by other reports of Hazaras being targeted, and prominent Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq blamed militants influenced by the ultra-radical rhetoric of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

ISIS, which holds swathes of Iraq and Syria, so far has little proven military presence in Afghanistan, though several Taliban commanders have formally sworn allegiance to the Middle East-based militant movement.

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