CAMBODIA: A Canadian toddler was killed when armed gunmen stormed a kindergarten in Cambodia's tourist hub, Siem Reap, yesterday morning, taking dozens of young children hostage in a violent ordeal that lasted six hours.
Scores of panic-stricken expatriate and Cambodian parents stood vigil as government forces surrounded the elite Siem Reap International School as the four masked hostage-takers issued demands for $1,000 in cash, weaponry (AK47 assault rifles, rocket launchers, grenades) and a minibus to take them to the Thai border.
Negotiations with the hostage-takers, which started shortly after they entered the school compound at around 8.30am, continued until 1.30pm when senior government police officials agreed to provide a getaway vehicle and $30,000, but refused to hand over any weapons.
Gunfire was heard as the hostage-takers entered the school and government officials reported later that the captors had threatened to kill the children, aged two to five years old, unless their demands were met.
Unleashing a volley of gunfire into the air, the four men left a classroom at about 3pm and attempted to load up to 10 children and a foreign teacher into the mini-van that had been left with its engine running outside the school building by government negotiators.
However, as they loaded the van, military police officers pounced and overpowered the hostage-takers, said Hek Ra, a military police lieutenant who took part in the rescue.
Although it was reported earlier that the four were heavily armed, the military police found that only one had a gun, said Hek Ra, adding that all four suspects were taken alive.
Reinforcements moved inside the school compound and there was pandemonium as distraught parents rushed to the building and hauled their children to safety.
As the situation stabilised, security forces discovered the body of a Canadian boy, aged between two and three years old, who had reportedly been shot in the head. It was still not known what time the boy was killed, Hek Ra said late yesterday evening.
The hostage-taking has shaken the country's sizeable expatriate population, many of whom are employed in foreign aid agencies and in Siem Reap's booming hotel industry.
Throngs of foreign tourists visit the area's historic 9th to 14th century Angkor Wat temple complex.
Children enrolled at the school come from Australia, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, France, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, the US, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan.
The incident will not help Cambodia's still shaky reputation for safety and security.
"We are very sorry that there is the loss of one Canadian child," Siem Reap provincial governor Sim Son said yesterday.
In a statement, Cambodia's powerful Ministry of Interior expressed regret and condolences to the boy's family, who had moved to Cambodia just two months ago to take up employment at a new hotel in Siem Reap town.
Cambodia's prime minister Hun Sen later dampened speculation that the men responsible for the hostage drama were motivated by political goals or terrorism. He said the four were bandits from an area in the country known for drug consumption and gang violence.
Police officials were still questioning the four, all of whom are in their early 20s, late yesterday evening.
Minister of information Khieu Kanharith said officials were investigating whether the four were working for operatives from outside Cambodia.
Hun Sen said the four were not linked to al-Qaeda or the militant movement's regional sister group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been blamed for the Bali bombing and explosions in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
"It is bad luck for us but it is also our good luck to avoid bigger damage," Hun Sen said of the outcome, noting that far more bloodshed had occurred in the 2004 Beslan school siege in Russia.
Singaporean Sharon Tan, who manages the Australian Centre for Education in Siem Reap, and whose three-year-old son, Sin Lyvong, was taken hostage, said she was surprised that he was in such good condition given his ordeal.
"I'm pleasantly surprised that he was not traumatised," she said.
Several foreign diplomats said they were not sure what had motivated the hostage-takers, though tourism experts and residents of Siem Reap town were predicting that the drama will adversely affect the burgeoning tourism sector.
After several years of peace in Cambodia, Siem Reap's tourist bonanza has been a success story for a country with a long and tragic history which saw an estimated 1.7 million people die during Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.
(Additional reporting by William Shaw)