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Two commandos died and one was injured during captivity survival train - ing by the Special Warfare Command, military authorities have announced. According to Army headquarters, two staff sergeants aged 21 and 23 died of apparent suffocation. Another 23-year-old staff sergeant was recov- ering after medical treatment. The in- cident took place at the 13th Airborne Special Forces Brigade in Jeungpyeong County, North Chungcheong. The deaths were the latest in a string of fatalities of service members, and the military has since admitted there was no safety manual for the training. According to the official reports, the accidents took place during training for how to deal with being captured by an enemy. The training is intended to teach special forces soldiers to endure interrogations and torture and how to possibly escape. This is a new training program and the accidents took place as a few elite special forces commandos participat - ed in a final rehearsal, the army said. The military planned to provide the training to all members of the Special Warfare Command. That plan has now been halted. According to the military, 10 com - mandos participated in the training by playing the role of captives. “During the morning exercise, most of them managed to escape from the simulated captivity within an hour,” said an official of the Special Warfare Command. “The intensity of the train- ing was strengthened in the later ses- sion and it appeared to have led to the deadly accidents.” The later session started at 9 p.m. Ten participants played the role of captives and another 10 played enemy captors. Four drill instructors super- vised the exercise. Among the 10 supposed captives, eight were put in solitary cells, while two were put together in a cell. They were all forced to kneel with their hands tied behind them. Their heads were covered with bags made of black nylon cloth, the Army said. The aim of the training was to break free from the binds and escape. “When we become captive, we will face torture,” said a member of the Special Warfare Command. “If you are wearing a bag on your face and put into a tiny cell, you will experience extreme fear. The goal of the training was overcoming that fear.” The instructors and the 10 com- mandos playing captors tightened the strings of the bags on the captives’ heads during the second session, said Lt. Col. Kim Hong-jeong, who is in charge of planning the training at the brigade. Around 10:30 p.m., some of the cap- tives cursed and yelled due to their discomfort, but the drill instructors did not stop the program because they decided that was a part of the exercise. “There was no brutality during the training,” Kim said. After one of the captives collapsed, the program was stopped and the conditions of the participants were checked. Two more were found to be barely breathing. While the first staff sergeant re - gained consciousness after being treated in an emergency room at a nearby hospital, the other two died. The remaining seven were confirmed unharmed. Although the military said there was no violence or torture used during the training, criticism flared that the mil- itary operated the rehearsal without proper safety measures. The three participants had to be transported to a nearby hospital through ambulanc- es dispatched after a call to the 119 emergency hotline, not military am- bulances. Drill instructors, who were sup- posed to observe the participants from the hallway of the cells, left their positions during the training. “We sent an investigation team to re- view the entire system,” said Col. Na Seung-yong, public affairs officer of the Army. “We will stop the training and punish anyone who did any illegal actions.” two SoldierS die during torture- training exerciSe parK’S day care pledgeS collapSe with no fundS The Park Geun-hye government’s ambitious in- itiative to provide inexpensive day care services for working mothers has come to an apparent dead end due to a poor assessment of the budget required. Double-income families with children un - der the age of 12 were eligible for the govern- ment-run child-care program, in which a family could receive up to 720 hours of child care ser - vice a year, paying a relatively cheap rate based on income level, with hourly rates varying be- tween 1,250 won and 5,500 won. According to government data, 51,393 house - holds nationwide used the service last year. One mother from Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, who requested that she only be identified by her surname Lee, said she has been using the government’s child-care service for her young daughter since January, typically paying for about 10 hours a day. Lee, 34, who works at an insurance company call center, said the service would have previ- ously cost her about 1.1 million won per month, but with the city’s subsidy, she only had to pay 350,000 won for her toddler, who is about to turn 2 years old. However, the service was recently interrupted abruptly. “The city telephoned me and said they would run out of money in the near future,” Lee said. “They said I should either pay the entire 1.1 mil - lion won or find an alternative child care service. ... I feel like a bomb just dropped on my house,” she added. “I have no idea where I should take my daughter now.” Several local governments, including the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the provincial governments of Gyeonggi, North Jeolla and North Chungcheong, have since either reduced or ended their services after they ran out of funds. “Since July, we have operated the program by reducing monthly service hours from 60 to 40,” said Oh Yeong-in, the head of the Gender Equal - ity and Family Affairs Division in North Jeolla’s Jeonju city government. The child-care program faced an impasse af- ter the central government failed to accurately assess the demand. Its expenses also rapidly in - creased this year after the government provid- ed four major insurance plans to the program’s child-care employees.