We had lost the habit of hostage-taking at airports. This Sunday, German police are still grappling with a hostage situation at Hamburg airport after an armed man crossed a security barrier and entered the tarmac.
The airport was closed to all takeoffs and landings on Saturday evening after police arrived in large numbers on the scene to deal with the hostage situation. All flights have been suspended indefinitely.
The hostage is a child
“Everything indicates that we are facing an episode arising from a child custody dispute,” Hamburg police communicated through their profile on the social network X.
The alleged attacker, a 35-year-old man, entered the airport complex around 8 p.m. local time, reaching the landing strip where he fired shots and threw two incendiary devices, similar to Molotov cocktails, which were extinguished by emergency services. fire services, a spokesperson for the federal police told the newspaper Welt.
The man’s partner, a resident of Stade, a town near Hamburg, had previously alerted security forces to a possible kidnapping of her daughter, the spokeswoman said, leading authorities to consider the event as a case of kidnapping.
A man is said to be of Turkish origin
Police communicate via a Turkish translator, a spokesperson said.
Psychologists as well as officers specializing in negotiations are on site, police said, as well as special forces.
“The operation continues. Our negotiators are in contact with the person in the car,” police said this morning on Twitter –
