Schoolgirls captivated by unidentified man in Germany

An unidentified man had forced four schoolgirls aged 10 and 11 off a bus, by knife, into a house in the town of Ennepetal, which is about 60 kilometres northwest of Cologne. They were released unharmed after being held captive for six hours, said police in Germany.

The man had two knives and held the children in a cellar, said police spokesperson Joerg Blaszyk.

Police immediately surrounded the house to try to make contact, but the man hadn’t made any demands. Also motive of the armed man was not known.

The man, believed to be Iranian, boarded a bus packed with children traveling home from school at about 13:00 local time (12:00 BST).

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.

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.”

Witnesses say the man, described as being in his 40s, took about 10 children off the bus at about 1 p.m. local time, but let several go.

He forced the others into the house, where a woman was returning home and opening the door. The man pushed the woman aside and shoved the children inside the house and locked the door.

Ennepetal is between the cities of Duesseldorf and Dortmund in North Rhine-Westphalia state.

Police said psychologists were trying to speak to the man, but they did not believe the abduction was a normal hostage-taking so much as a direct threat of harm to the girls.