Preschoolers safe as Malaysian siege ends

Updated 3 hours 40 minutes ago

Heavily armed police had surrounded the two-storey building. (AFP: Mohamed Azre)

Malaysian police have ended a dramatic hostage crisis at a kindergarten and rescued all the captives after a seven-hour stand-off, local police said.

About 30 preschool children and four teachers had been held hostage in a barricaded room at the kindergarten in the Malaysian city of Muar, in southern Johor state.

A police officer said the hostage-taker had been armed with a hammer and machete.

The hostage-taker has now been taken to a local hospital after being shot in the head by authorities.

"We have ended the hostage taking. The children and teachers are safe," the police officer said.

Witnesses said the children were calm and showed no fear as they emerged from the building, singing songs led by their teachers and walking into the waiting arms of their cheering parents.

Johor deputy police chief Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman told reporters the hostage-taker was alive but in a critical condition.

The children and teachers have been taken to hospital for medical checks.

Earlier, heavily armed police surrounded the two-storey building.

The hostage-taker was reportedly communicating with police negotiators and psychologists and had asked them for food and a gun.

Muar was also the scene in March last year of another kindergarten siege when a man armed with a hammer barged into a school and attacked three six year olds who were left with head injuries.

Some 20 children at the school were eating breakfast when that attack happened. The 45-year-old kindergarten operator was also injured in the incident.

The New Straits Times newspaper said the same man was responsible for both the March incident and Thursday's hostage situation but police were not immediately able to confirm the report.

- AFP