This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30480485
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Belgium arrests in Ghent apartment siege | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Up to three people have been arrested after four men burst into a flat in the Belgian city of Ghent, amid reports of a hostage-taking. | |
| Armed police stormed into the flat, reports said, hours after the siege began in the Dampoort area early on Monday. | |
| Authorities said the incident was not linked to terrorism. Local media said it may have involved drugs. | |
| Hours after the siege began it was unclear whether it was over. | |
| Reporters at the scene said that three people had given themselves up without violence and had been led away with their hands held aloft. | |
| But it is not yet known whether they are suspects. | |
| Local prosecutors said there was no indication of any link to terrorism or jihadist group Islamic State. | |
| "This isn't the same sort of incident as the events in Sydney," spokeswoman Annemie Serlippens said. | |
| The head of Ghent police Filip Rasschaert told De Standaard website that they were carrying out the operation carefully because of the potential involvement of a hostage. | |
| Federal authorities were now in control of the siege, he said. | |
| "They have all they need to bring a successful end to a hostage-taking," he said. | |
| Ghent resident Ruben Denys, who was within the police cordon, told the BBC: "There are police officers around the building, at the back and on people's terraces. A truck has arrived with ladders. They have guns." | |
| Belgian TV said that another siege had taken place in Ghent in October, involving a man implicated in an earlier hostage-taking. That incident involved an unpaid debt, it reported. |