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Hostages taken in French town of Roubaix Gunman killed in French town of Roubaix but police rule out terror link
(35 minutes later)
Police were called to a hostage situation in the northern French town of Roubaix near the Belgian border on Tuesday evening, but local media cautioned it had “no link with a terrorist attack”. A gunman was killed by police after taking a woman and her two children - including a one-year-old baby - hostage in the northern French town of Roubaix near France’s border with Belgium.
Local newspaper La Voix du Nord said there were no injured people. The incident came at a tense time with France on high alert following the terrorist shootings and bombings in Paris and as police in both countries hunt for suspects linked to the attacks that left 130 dead.
Gunmen were in a property on the corner of avenue Gustave Delory and rue Vaillant, Roubaix. Police sources suggested there was no link to the Paris attacks of 13 November and the hostage-taking may be related to a robbery. Officials insisted the hostage situation that lasted several hours was not linked to terrorism, but was related to an attempted robbery.
Residents said they heard gunfire around 7pm on Tuesday evening. La Voix du Nord reported automatic gunfire and “several injured”. The area around the flat was sealed off. Police were alerted at about 7pm French time after a manager at the Crédit Municipal bank in Roubaix was approached by gunmen, who were reportedly carrying automatic weapons, and ordered to open the bank safe.
“An operation is under way after hostages were taken. Gunshots were fired and the neighbourhood has been cordoned off,” a police source told Reuters. “A bank director and his family may have been taken as hostages.” It was unclear whether the victim managed to alert the police or if they happened to be patrolling, but officers spotted the gunmen, shots were fired and the robbers fled.
Sources say the gunmen - two or three of them - were holding hostage a bank manager who works for Crédit Municipal and his wife and possibly, but not confirmed, children at the family home in Roubaix. After a high-speed chase, they took refuge in a house in a residential area of the town where they were besieged by about 50 members of an armed rapid response team.
French media reported that the gunmen approached the bank manager near his home and ordered him to open the safe at around 6.50pm on Tuesday. Jean-François Cordet, the local prefect, arrived around 9.15pm as the siege was continuing. The siege ended at about 10pm when the hostages were freed unharmed. One gunman was killed and a second arrested. Lille public prosecutor Frédéric Fèvre told journalists “two or three other gunmen” had fled.
At 10pm, police announced that the situation was over. Two hostages had escaped earlier and the last two were taken away by the emergency services.