Cambodian officials on Friday were interrogating four men who took dozens of mostly foreign nursery school pupils hostage at an international school near the famed Angkor Wat temples and allegedly killed a 2-year-old Canadian boy.
The men, all in their early 20s, had apparently planned to extort money from the increasing number of foreigners who have come to work in Siem Reap — Cambodia’s main tourist town and an island of prosperity in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Police were questioning the attackers on Friday, said deputy military police commander Prak Chanthoeun.
He quoted the gang’s alleged ringleader, named Khum, as saying: ”I needed money as soon as possible so I shot this boy and also because this kid was crying a lot, more than the other kids.”
The four, wearing masks, burst into the school at about 9:30am on Thursday and herded a teacher and almost 30 nursery school-aged children into a classroom in one of the school’s two buildings.
Dozens of other children — from as many as 15 countries — managed to hide or scramble from the grounds.
A tense six-hour standoff ensued as police negotiated with the gunmen and parents waited anxiously in the hot sun outside the school gates.
”After the boy was killed I called the kidnapper and I told him please don’t harm any teachers or kids, they know nothing,” Prak Chanthoeun said on Friday.
”If you want money and guns, just give me a minute, just don’t do anything to these people.”
The attackers demanded money, weapons and a vehicle, and Cambodian officials partially complied, delivering $30 000 and a van.
But when the attackers got in the van along with four children and prepared to drive off, security forces closed the school gate and stormed the van, dragging the men out, Chanthoeun said.
Some parents were seen grabbing their children and dashing away from the school yard, while others kicked and beat three of the four, and left at least one unconscious before authorities intervened.
Police described the four as small town gangsters, who came from a district near the capital Phnom Penh to work in Siem Reap. They told police they were penniless and ”decided to do that to the foreign children because they believed their families are rich”, said Chanthoeun.
The family of the dead Canadian boy had moved to Siem Reap just a few months ago so the father could work with a new hotel.
Denis Richer, a Frenchman who teaches at another school in the town, said he tried to comfort the father. ”I asked him, ‘what can I do now?’ He was completely lost,” Richer said.
He said the family arrived about two months ago so the father could take a management position at the Hotel de la Paix, due to open next month. Family members could not be immediately contacted.
The affair was a rare disturbance to the tranquillity that usually prevails in Siem Reap, Cambodia’s main tourist town because it is a gateway to the fabled Angkor Wat temple complex.
Parents of many children at the Siem Reap International School are expatriates serving in the tourism sector, including a string of upmarket hotels catering to wealthy travelers.
Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the government hopes tourism can help improve the desperate conditions. While foreigners generally go unmolested, street crime is otherwise rampant, especially in the cities. – Sapa-AP