A two-year-old Canadian boy and two hostage-takers were killed as a siege at an international school in Cambodia ended this morning.
Gunmen seized an estimated 29 children from several nations, including Ireland, at the school. It is understood the children have now left the building and four other gunmen have been arrested.
The siege lasted for six hours before bursts of gunfire were heard and the hostages were freed.
The child, whose name has not yet been released, was killed before the stand-off ended, said a police official.
"Four hostage-takers have been arrested. There are only four of them," he said. Police earlier said there were six attackers.
Soldiers and police sealed off the area around the Siem Reap International School, while officials negotiated with five or six hostage-takers, who demanded up to $30,000 and a 12-seater van to make their escape.
The assailants entered the school around 9.30am and demanded $1,000, six AK-47 assault rifles, six shotguns, hand grenades and at least one car, police said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs here has confirmed that two Irish children were among those held but said they would not be issuing further details at the request of the families. A spokeswoman added that the two were "safe and well".
A spokesman for the Department said earlier: "Our Beijing officials have consular responsibility for the area and they are in contact with authorities in Siem Reap."
A local resident, who said she had seen a list of the children held, told Reuters news agency the hostages were Irish, American, British, Australian, Singaporean, Canadian, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Swiss, Indondesian, Indian, Italian and Filipino. Many of them are children of expatriate hotel workers.
Hostage-taking, normally for money, is not uncommon in the war-scarred southeast Asian nation, which is awash with weapons after decades of civil war, including the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s.
Agencies