All posts tagged: hostage

Six die in Kyiv shooting, hostage situation; being investigated as a terrorist act

Six die in Kyiv shooting, hostage situation; being investigated as a terrorist act

Published by Sam Flores

Unofficial Telegram channels quoted witnesses as saying the suspect had moved down a street and shot and killed people at point-blank range without warning before entering the supermarket. “The shooter in Kyiv was liquidated during the arrest,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram. “Special forces of the … national police stormed the store where the attacker was. He took people hostage and shot at a policeman during his detention. Before that, negotiators tried to contact him.” OFFICERS TRIED TO NEGOTIATE Klymenko told reporters at the scene that officers had tried without success to negotiate with the suspect for 40 minutes. He said the man had owned a registered weapon and secured a medical certificate to use it. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said the shooter had been identified as a 58-year-old native of Moscow. Zelenskiy said the suspect had a criminal record and had set fire to the apartment where he was registered before going into the street with the gun. The president said he had lived for some time in the eastern Donetsk region, …

Kyiv shooting: 5 killed in Ukrainian capital as gunman takes 4 hostages in shop | World | News

Kyiv shooting: 5 killed in Ukrainian capital as gunman takes 4 hostages in shop | World | News

Published by Sam Flores

Five people have been killed and 15 others injured in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after a man opened fire with an automatic weapon. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the injured included a child, while Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed that the suspect had been killed by special forces. Reports suggest he went into a supermarket in the Holosiivskyi area of the city, where he took four hostages who were rescued safely. Special forces were at the scene on Demeevskaya Street, where they neutralised the gunman, who has been identified by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General as a 58-year-old Moscow native. A shocking video showed the shooter brandishing his automatic weapon in the supermarket where he was reportedly holding hostages. A fire also broke out at the scene amid suspicions that explosives had been ignited. MP Oleksii Goncharenko said: “A fire can be seen from the side of the Velmart supermarket, where the terrorist barricaded himself with hostages.” Klitschko said the injured child was taken to hospital, while adults were examined and treated at the scene by …

Stricken Thai tanker runs aground as UK warns Iran to stop ‘holding global economy hostage’ on Strait of Hormuz

Stricken Thai tanker runs aground as UK warns Iran to stop ‘holding global economy hostage’ on Strait of Hormuz

Published by Sam Flores

Speaking at the G7 meeting in Vaux-de-Cernay, Ms Cooper said: “Iran cannot be able to just hold the global economy hostage as a result of a strait which is about international shipping routes and the freedom of navigation that has been so strongly supported at the United Nations, but also by countries across the world.” Source link

Dead Man’s Wire review: Bill Skarsgård is deeply unsettling in retro hostage drama

Dead Man’s Wire review: Bill Skarsgård is deeply unsettling in retro hostage drama

Published by Sam Flores

Bill Skarsgård plays Tony Kiritsis, a down-on-his-luck Indianapolis man convinced his mortgage brokers had screwed him over. In 1977, he snuck a sawed-off shotgun into their downtown offices and took Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery, shaking off his Stranger Things heart throb status) hostage, looping a homemade contraption around his neck that ensured if police shot Kiritsis, Hall would die with him. He demanded $5 million and a full apology from Hall’s father. Source link

Former hostage Louis Arnaud discusses life in Evin prison – and his fears for Iran’s future

Former hostage Louis Arnaud discusses life in Evin prison – and his fears for Iran’s future

Published by Sam Flores

Iranian authorities arrested Louis Arnaud in 2022, accusing him of “propaganda” and threatening state security by taking part in protests. His family denied the charges, saying he “kept his distance” from public demonstrations while visiting Iran as a tourist.  His arrest came amid a crackdown on the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement – widespread anti-government protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for  wearing a hijab incorrectly and died in police custody. Arnaud spent nearly two years in Evin prison, where many of the regime’s opponents are incarcerated – including political prisoners, academics and activists – as well as foreign nationals accused of espionage or distributing propaganda. The prison has, for decades, been a symbol of brutal repression, with detainees facing routine physical and psychological torture and the constant threat of summary execution or forced disappearance.  US and Israeli strikes on Iran this week have brought new dangers and made prisoners one of the country’s most at-risk groups. Arnaud, author of “La Révolution intérieure” (The Internal Revolution), spoke to FRANCE 24 about his fears that the Iranian regime will use the conflict to crack down even harder on prisoners in …

Thailand ‘school shooting’ as ‘students taken hostage’ with ‘multiple casualties’ | World | News

Thailand ‘school shooting’ as ‘students taken hostage’ with ‘multiple casualties’ | World | News

Published by Sam Flores

A school in Thailand has reportedly come under attack in an alleged mass shooting, with teachers and students “taken hostage.” According to the initial reports, the attacker entered the school and opened fire at security staff and others nearby before seizing a group of students and teachers and holding them inside the building. The incident has reportedly occurred in the province of Songkhla. According to the officials, at least three people had been injured during the incident. Meanwhile, many other students remain stuck in classrooms throughout the school, unable to leave because they fear the situation outside is unsafe. Police from the Hat Yai station, supported by special operations teams and rescue personnel, have secured the perimeter around the school in an effort to contain the situation and maintain pressure on the suspect. A police official confirmed that the gunman who entered the school has been detained. “The perpetrator has been ⁠captured,” Deputy Superintendent Wichian Soboon told Reuters. Source link

Why the Holocaust needs three annual remembrance days

Why the Holocaust needs three annual remembrance days

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — The scene will grip you, and it will be hard to forget. Israeli soldiers sang the song “Ani Maamin” as they recovered the body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last hostage, from a cemetery in Gaza. “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and, though he tarry, I will wait daily for his coming,” they sang, as captured on video.  Those were the same words that victims of the Holocaust sang as they went to the gas chambers. The historic resonances are clear and painful. We would have liked Jewish history to have stayed in the past where it belongs, but it does not. Rather, it walks with us into the present, sits down next to us and will not let us ignore it. Today (Jan. 27), on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, that collision of griefs feels especially sharp. We are mourning the dead of this moment while remembering the dead of another abyss. Different horrors, same human capacity for cruelty. Same Jewish insistence on memory. When I …

Israel army says it has identified remains of last Gaza hostage, Ran Gvili

Israel army says it has identified remains of last Gaza hostage, Ran Gvili

Published by Sam Flores

People on Hostage Square hold placards bearing the face of Ran Gvili, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 21, 2025. ILIA YEFIMOVICH / AFP The Israeli military said Monday, January 26, that the remains of the last hostage held in Gaza, Ran Gvili, had been identified and repatriated to Israel for burial. A non-commissioned officer in the Israeli police’s elite Yassam unit, Gvili was killed in action during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and his body was taken to Gaza. He was 24 at the time of his death. Officials had said on Sunday that Israeli forces were searching for his remains in a cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday. “Following the completion of the identification process by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, in cooperation with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, [Israeli military] representatives informed the family of the deceased hostage Sergeant First Class Ran Gvili, that their loved one has been identified and will be returned for burial,” an army statement said. “With this, all hostages …