Police are hunting a group of gunmen believed to be hiding inside a shopping mall near Paris this morning following an attempted robbery.
After successfully rescuing 18 staff members who were trapped inside the building, police have now turned their attention to snaring those responsible.
The gunmen - one of whom was thought to be a Primark employee - were still on the loose and believed to be inside the Qwartz mall in Villeneuve-la-Garenne just north of Paris.
Police said earlier two or three gunmen stormed the store soon after 6am as employees arrived for work in the Paris suburb just north of the city.
The area around the mall was shut down, all traffic stopped and other stores in the vicinity closed as special forces rushed to the scene.
The mall was promptly evacuated but according to police, some 18 employees had remained inside, holed up in a canteen.
It is not yet clear whether they were taken there by the gunmen or whether they escaped on their own and hid there.
However, they 'were evacuated around 10:30 am, one of them was unwell but no-one was injured,' police said, adding security forces were still hunting for the gunmen.
The armed men were caught entering the mall on CCTV cameras but have not been filmed leaving the premises, indicating they are still inside.
Meanwhile, it's believed a staff member managed to raise the alarm by text messaging her boyfriend telling him she was being held hostage.
A supply worker told Le Parisien he saw people fleeing the mall in a panic.
He said: 'Everyone was running and screaming "they are armed, they are armed, we must get out".'
Officers at the scene said they were initially treating the incident as a ‘suspected armed robbery attempt’ but terrorism could not be ruled out.
The Paris region remains on high alert for terrorist activity after Islamic extremists attacked a kosher supermarket and satirical newspaper offices in January, leaving 20 people dead including the attackers
No comments:
Post a Comment