Fear etched into their faces, two young female employees have fled a central Sydney cafe more than seven hours after a terrorist armed with a gun took more than a dozen people hostage and forced crying women to hold a black Islamic flag up to the window.
A total of five hostages, including barista Elly Chen, have now escaped the Lindt cafe in Martin Place an hour after a male employee and two male customers scrambled from a fire exit and sheltered behind heavily armed police officers shortly before 3.45pm on Monday.
It is understood the hostages escaped from the cafe, rather than being released by their captor. A male former hostage has been taken to nearby St Vincent’s Hospital, in Sydney’s inner suburbs, and is being treated for shock.
This evening, police negotiators revealed they had learned the name of the hostage-taker and have made contact with the man.
Chris Reason, a journalist from the Seven Network – whose offices are opposite the cafe – tonight said he could see the gunman rotating the hostages through positions in the store’s window.
‘From inside Martin Place we can see the faces of hostages – pained, strained, eyes red and raw,’ he recounted. Food and water was being delivered to the prisoners from the cafe’s back kitchens.
Seven Network staff have counted around 15 hostages in the cafe, he said, rather than the 50 reported by Lindt Australia CEO Steve Loane earlier today. Daily Mail Australia understands a 25-year-old female fashion industry worker and two female baristas aged in their 30s are among that number.
As scores of heavily armed police, clad in black, remained on guard in Martin Place, Deputy NSW Police Commissioner Catherine Burn told reporters police were planning to ‘work into the night’ – and even tomorrow – should the crisis continue.
Witnesses earlier described how a man wearing a headband covered in Arabic walked into the cafe around 9:30am and produced a shotgun from a blue bag.
Shortly afterwards, as police surged into the city, hostages were seen with their hands pressed against the windows holding up the Islamic Shahada flag. It is an emblem of extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is fighting the Assad government in Syria.
Office buildings went into lockdown and Martin Place train station remains shut as officers operated according to unprecedented Task Force Pioneer counter-terrorism protocols.
The incident began just hours after a 25-year-old suspect was arrested in a terror raid in Sydney’s north-west.
Deputy Commissioner Burn said police were assessing the health of the freed hostages this afternoon. ‘They are now out of the building and are with police,’ she said.
‘The first thing we’re doing is making sure they’re okay,’ she said.
‘We will work with these people to find out some more information. The information I have is that no one [inside] has been harmed of injured.’
Officers were still trying to determine the motivation for the crisis.
Queensland’s police commissioner Ian Stewart said earlier today he has information an improvised explosive device may be involved, but state Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione was unable to confirm that.
‘This is a difficult day for everyone. I can confirm to you we have an armed offender holding an undisclosed number of hostages in the city,’ Mr Scipione said.
‘Police have been in attendance and have controlled the situation from very early this morning shortly after it was advised. We are at this stage continuing to secure and do all we can to ensure this goes to a peaceful outcome.’
Columnist Chris Kenny, who was in the shop about 20 minutes before the siege began, said he understood the automatic glass sliding doors had been disabled.
‘I did speak to a couple of people who saw a bit more of this unfold than I did,’ he said.
‘One woman said she tried to go into the shop just after I came out with my takeaway coffee but the doors wouldn’t open.
‘So obviously whoever is doing this has disabled the automatic glass sliding doors to stop anyone else going in and she said immediately she could see there was a weapon.
‘The woman was quite frantic but very clear what she was telling (the police).
‘I know the faces of the people who are sitting there enjoying a morning coffee.’
– dailymail
