AP-KABUL, Afghanistan -- While Western diplomats appeal daily on behalf of eight foreign aid workers arrested for preaching Christianity, the families of Afghans of the same group hear nothing of their jailed relatives and fear the worst.
Armed members of the ruling Taliban militia, meanwhile, closed the offices of two more Christian aid groups Friday, making no arrests but ordering 50 mostly American employees to leave Afghanistan within 72 hours.
The Taliban have let International Red Cross officials and Western diplomats meet with the eight foreigners -- two Americans, four Germans and two Australians -- arrested in early August when their German-based Christian organization, Shelter Now International, was shut down.
But access to the imprisoned Afghan workers, who could face death if found guilty of proselytizing or converting to Christianity in this deeply Muslim nation, has been denied.
Twelve-year-old Amjad says he has seen his father only once since the Taliban arrested him outside the Shelter Now office in Kabul. Amjad says he is too afraid to give his father's name for fear of angering the Taliban.
"We are so afraid. We don't know what will happen to him. We don't even know if he is OK. My mother cries all the time," said Amjad, who works 12 hours a day as an apprentice mechanic. "We want the world to ask about our families."
The Taliban, which rule about 95 percent of Afghanistan, initially said 16 Afghan workers of Shelter Now were arrested. Since then other laborers for the aid organization -- gardeners, cooks and carpenters -- have been jailed.
"Everyone is talking about the foreigners, but no one is talking about the Afghans, about my brother," said Mohammed Hakim, whose brother worked as a gardener for Shelter Now. "What about us? We are afraid."
More than 20,000 Afghans work here for international aid organizations. In Afghanistan, where the average monthly income is barely $4, jobs with an international organization are coveted.
The Taliban announced Wednesday that the eight foreign aid workers would be put on trial for preaching Christianity.
The two Americans both went to college at Baylor University in Waco. Dayna Curry, 29, graduated from Baylor with a degree in social work and worked as a social worker in Waco, her stepmother, Sue Fuller, said in Nashville. Heather Mercer, 24, also attended Baylor, school officials said.
Curry and Mercer were arrested Aug. 3 at the home of an Afghan family. The Taliban say the two women were teaching the family about the second coming of Jesus Christ.
"Maybe we had suspicions before about Shelter Now that they were preaching Christianity, but now we have proof," said Mullah Mohammed Khaqzar, deputy interior minister.
For the foreigners, conviction carries a penalty of jail and expulsion. A senior Taliban official said they will likely be released and deported.
But for the aid group's Afghan employees, the prospects are grim. The same official said they will get either life in prison or the death penalty.
Taliban officials think some of the Afghan staff of Shelter Now International converted to Christianity or at least taught Christian stories to Afghan students attending the group's schools.
In raids of Shelter Now International offices in Kabul, the Taliban say they found compact discs promoting Christianity in local languages, as well as boxes of Bibles and other Christian material translated into Afghan languages.
The closures of two more Christian aid groups -- U.S.-based International Assistance Mission and SERVE -- on Friday came as little surprise. For weeks, the Taliban have claimed that the Shelter Now case was merely a part of a "larger conspiracy" by aid groups to convert Muslims to Christianity.