Canadian boy killed in Cambodian hostage taking

[Whiskey_Dan]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1118918490435_114327690/?hub=TopStories


Canadian boy killed in Cambodian hostage taking
CTV.ca News Staff

A Canadian boy is among those dead in a hostage taking at a school for international students in northern Cambodia.

The boy's name has not been released by Foreign Affairs, but spokesman Andrew Hannon confirmed he was a Canadian.

The standoff took place at the Siem Reap International School. At around 9 a.m. local time Thursday, masked gunmen burst in and took at least 29 students and a teacher hostage. Reports differ on whether there were six or four gunmen.

The hostage takers demanded $30,000 US, weapons including AK-47 assault rifles and B-40 grenade launchers, and a van to get them over the border into Thailand. They threatened to kill the children one by one if their demands weren't met.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said the cash and a van were given to the hostage-takers, but they continued to demand guns and grenades.

The gunmen reportedly killed the boy when authorities declined to meet all of their demands, Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said, quoting the deputy national police chief, Neth Savoeun.

"Something went horribly wrong during the six-hour siege and suddenly there was a burst of gunfire," reports CTV's Steve Chao.

After hearing shots from inside the school, about two dozen policemen raided the building, freeing the rest of the hostages in a hail of gunfire. Two of the gunmen were reportedly killed and the rest arrested.

Kanharith said the Canadian boy who was killed was three years old and that he was shot in the head. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Dan McTeague told Canada AM that his information is that the boy was two years old.

"Details are still emerging, given the place where this is," McTeague said. "We'll certainly know more as the hours go on."

The crisis unfolded at Cambodia's tourism hub of Siem Reap, near its famed 800-year-old Angkor Wat temples.

"The temples draw about a million tourists every year. In recent years, a lot of hotels have been built there and a lot of ex-pat families have come to run the tourist hotels," reports Chao.

"And so in that school, there were several dozen children from different nationalities."

The attackers' motives were not immediately clear. Kanharith speculated that the hostage takers were "rogue elements'' hired to hurt tourism in Siem Reap.

He also wondered if the men were part of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, an anti-government group that launched a failed armed attack in Cambodia in November 2000.

"We don't know since they are covering their faces with masks,'' he said.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, in a speech at the Defence Ministry in Phnom Penh, said the masked men "were private security guards at the school.''

Canadian Embassy officials are en route to the school.





I can't believe people would do that kind of thing, but then again we do live in a dangerous world.
Well it is Cambodia, I hope those bastards get what they deserve! :threat:

Dan

 

[P-Free]

Most sickening part of it all is that the Cambodian government gave the hostage takers money and a van to escape in. If these are the types of people Cambodia wants walking down their streets...

 

[CADPAT SOLDIER]

Most sickening part of it all is that the Cambodian government gave the hostage takers money and a van to escape in. If these are the types of people Cambodia wants walking down their streets...

Perhaps they thought it best to  give up $30000 and a van and save a whole bunch of CHILDREN. Then attempt some sort of "Commando" raid by a bunch of poorly trained and I"ll equipped police officers? I don't know what your children will be worth to you though....

 

[P-Free]

Poorly trained and ill equipped? I'm sure at 16 years old you've had plenty of contact with these "poorly trained and ill equipped" Cambodian police officers to make such a judgement.  :

 

[Whiskey_Dan]

For those who have actually traveled there, I have found the Cambodian police to be quite well armed and in my opinion, fairly well-trained compared to the countries that surround it.
They probably gave the van and money to get the hostage takers out of the building and into the vehicle before attempting any rescue. If you have looked up LAPD tactics, they always prefer vehicle assualts as the attackers are in a more confined space and it is much easier to overwhelm them there. I doubt they were going to let those bastards get away.

Later,
Dan

 

[EW]

Hmmm, lets see.  End-state:  gunman didn't leave the compound, all hostiles captured, no hostages killed during the rescue.  I see that as a score that any professional CT unit would be proud of - anywhere in the world.

Cheers....

 

[dutchie]

As a parent (of a 1 year old no less), I can hardly comprehend the anger and sorrow that the parents of that poor little boy must be feeling right now. I saw the father take the boy from the arms of a rescuer, and the look of despair and pain on his face was heart wrenching. I bet I would be sitting in a Cambodian jail for the murder of those animals had this happended to my little one. I hope our Government does everything it can to help this family out. What an awful, awful, tragedy.

BTW, the crowd beat the living snot out of those savages, killing one. I'm no advocate of vigilante justice, but I gotta admit I was glad to hear that.

 

[1feral1]

I saw the father take the boy from the arms of a rescuer, and the look of despair and pain on his face was heart wrenching.

We first heard about this sickening murderous event involving the cold blooded killing of this Canadian 3 yr old child almost 24 hrs ago. I too seen the video of the Dad with is lifeless son in his arms, and that image has been on my mind somewhat, infact right now it's just before 0400h and I cannot get back to sleep. Quite frankly it has really left me feeling great sadnesss for the family, and I cannot even bear to understand how the family must feel.

 

[Whiskey_Dan]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1119012623354_114421823/?hub=TopStories

Child's death in Cambodia stuns family, friends
CTV.ca News Staff

It was supposed to be a new start for a new life, but for the family of little Maxim Michalik of Victoria, B.C., all that changed with a deadly hostage-taking in Cambodia on Thursday.

Maxim was among the children at the Siem Reap International School when four masked man stormed in.

The little boy was reportedly shot in the head for reportedly crying too much during the ensuing tense standoff.

However, in an interview with The Toronto Star, Maxim's father, Martin Michalik, said teachers in the school have raised the possibility the boy, in fact, died in a hail of bullets from Cambodian security forces.

"He was only two-years-old," Martin Michalik told the Star.

He said it's his understanding his son's only mistake may have been that he was looking for his favorite book, and was grabbed as a shield by the hostage-takers.

"The SWAT team stared shooting, and that's how Maxim got killed," he told the newspaper.

The crisis ended with all the other 29 hostages freed, and with all four hostage-takers under arrest.

"It was a new life for them with plenty of hope," Dr. Dallemagne, who knows Maxim's parents, told Canada AM on the phone from Siem Reap, Cambodia.

"This life has been broken," he said.

Marcus Greisser, a friend of the Michalik family, told Canada AM he knows the boy's parents professionally and personally.

"Martin Michalik joined our team back in the spring of 2002. He was hired as a food and beverage manager and shortly after he arrived in Victoria, his wife Michaela joined him as well," he said.

"Having Maxim coming into their world, into their lives, it really transformed them," he said from Victoria, B.C.

Since both Martin Michalik and his wife are from Slovakia, they plan to bury their son in their homeland.

"Imagine what it must be like for them at this moment."

Greisser described the couple as "unique people, full of passion, full of life."

Now that the details of the terrible, tense day are coming out, Greisser said it's not easy to take. "It's really hard to listen to."

As news reached Victoria that it was Maxim who'd been killed, Greisser said people were devastated and in disbelief.

"We all stood there and could not come to terms with what really happened," he said.

Police in Cambodia say the 23-year-old ringleader of the hostage-taking told them he planned the raid as revenge against a South Korean man who employed him to drive his two children to the school.

"Every day, he thought about taking revenge against the South Koreans. So he bought a pistol, then called three friends from his home area," said Prak Chanthoeun, deputy commander of military police in Siem Reap province.

But when the man and his friends got to the school, they couldn't find the two Korean children.

Parents of many children at the school work in the tourism sector. Maxim Michalik's family had recently arrived in the area so the little boy's father could work at a new luxury hotel called the Hotel de la Paix (the Peace Hotel).



What is going on here? Now there's reports that the boy was killed from gunfire that came from outside?? The Cambodian police....
I can't imagine what that father is going through right now, first his 2-year old son is killed during the hostage siege, then finding out that it MIGHT have come from a bullet that a police officer fired. I too am not for vigilante justice, and it being Cambodia I know what those bastards will get, but they did deserve it.
I know God wants us to forgive, but this is one time that I would not.

Dan