Print this article

Fresh drama unfolds in Paris: Gunman takes 5 hostages

Last updated on: January 09, 2015 19:50 IST

Hours after Paris police cornered two gunmen, who were responsible for the Charlie Hebdo killings, at a printing press in Dammartin-en-Goele, another gunman took 5 people hostage at a kosher grocery store in Porte de Vincennes, eastern Paris.

Police arrive with guns at Port de Vincennes. According to reports, at least five people have been taken hostage in a kosher deli in the Port de Vincennes area of Paris. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

According to French police, two hostages have already died.

The attacker was suspected of being the same gunman who killed a policewoman in a shooting in Montrouge in southern Paris on Thursday.

French police have now named two people suspected to have taken the hostages as Amedy Coulibaly, 33, and a woman named Hayat Boumeddiene, 26.

“There is a hostage situation - shots have been fired,” said a Paris police source, who said armed officers were attending the scene.

French police arrest young people on a scooter as they arrive near the scene of a hostage taking at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris. Photograph: Youssef Boudlal/Reuters

The French media reported that the gunman was carrying a Kalashnikov.

Police have surrounded the grocery store, which is located on the ground floor. Armed police threw a cordon across Cours de Vincennes at the junction.

A helicopter was also seen flying over a four block section of the district.

AGENCIES