Hostaged German School Kids Freed

Four schoolchildren were set free after being held for more than six hours
by a man wielding two knives, police in northwest Germany said.

The man pulled the four girls off a public bus and forced them into a nearby home where they were held in a cellar.

There was no immediate word on their condition, said police spokesman Joerg Blaszyk.

The mother of one of the children who escaped from the bus said the man told them he wanted to bring his family to Germany from Iran.

Police believe the man took the children captive after commandeering the bus, which was filled with children on their way home from school in the town of Ennepetal shortly before 1 p.m., said Ulrich Rungwerth of the North Rhine-Westphalia state Interior Ministry.

Police commandos, including sharpshooters, quickly surrounded the single-family house, and the area was sealed off.

Renate Schulte said her 16-year-old son, Marvin, who escaped after the man forced the bus driver to stop, told her that the man read a statement in the bus saying his children were in Iran and he wanted to be allowed to bring them to Germany.

The man then herded some of the children into the back of the bus and tied nine or 10 of them together by their belt buckles with a cord.

The man told the children to stay calm and said he wanted to talk to the German government, Marvin Schulte said.

"He didn't seem aggressive," the boy said. "He said we should stay quiet and he didn't want to harm us."

The man, described by witnesses as in his 40s, hustled the group of captives off the bus, but apparently let several go.

He directed the others toward a house where a woman was returning home and forced her to give him the front-door key, Marvin Schulte said.

The man pushed the woman aside, shoved the children into the house and locked the door. Police said they were trying to establish contact with him. Neighbors said the man lived in the area.

The hostage-taking rattled the small-town calm in an area of upscale single-family homes in Ennepetal, between the cities of Duesseldorf and Dortmund.

The man did not immediately make any demands to authorities, police spokeswoman Sandra Zwick said.