Siege drama in provincial town in Venezuela by Tatiana Hadarova

Last Tuesday a robbery and siege drama happened in Altagracia di Orituco in Venezuela. Police caught an ambulance in which were escaping four men after robbing the bank, arresting them and freeing captives held as hostages for two days in bank. The four men robbed the Banco Provincial on Monday and after being cornered by police, they seized several customers and employees of the bank. Now hostages say that there were more than 60 people held captive. After a day of negotiations robbers managed to escape in ambulance taking with them another hostages. They were later caught on a highway in one of the Caraca's outskirts, where they were forced to hand themselves in and free remaining hostages. State governor Eduardo Manuitt said that now they are having all the four criminals under their control. The situation was really though when the four robbers, all in their twenties had threatened to kill hostages if police tried to get into the bank or stormed the gateway vehicle. Police also did not know at that time if criminals had stolen money from bank before boarding the ambulance. Hundreds of policemen and also helicopters were involved in this bank robbery drama. According to words of one of the hostages JeanCarlos, "the most hitting moment was the first shot when they wanted to kill the guard who later escaped." Among the people held in captivity for almost 2 days was a pregnant woman, an infant child and several other children. No one was wounded, although some people were taken to hospital for check-ups. This siege drama has got light on the fact, that Venezuela is one of the OPEC nation with the highest number of gun-related deaths. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is now warning his political allies to tackle the problem, otherwise voters might support the opposition in this year's election.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080129/wl_nm/venezuela_hostages_bank_dc;_ylt=AjhEqCCclzfOpJSmeIpldb6s0NUE

by Tatiana Hadarova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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