Traffic is disrupted at Hamburg airport, where a major police operation is underway. MORRIS MAC MATZEN / AFP
Traffic at Hamburg airport remained blocked on Sunday morning by a hostage situation on the tarmac, after the alleged kidnapping of a child by his father.
“The police operation continues, air traffic remains suspended until further notice. » The management of Hamburg airport announced this Sunday that it remained blocked by a hostage situation on the tarmac, after the alleged kidnapping of a child by his father as part of a family conflict, they said. indicated local authorities.
“We have mobilized police psychologists and we are currently talking with the perpetrator, we are banking on a negotiated solution,” police spokesperson Sandra Levgrün told the regional channel public television NDR. She called it a “very good sign” that the father had remained in contact with the authorities “for so long”.
Molotov cocktail
Saturday evening, around 8:00 p.m. local time, the armed man drove his car through an airport gate and entered the tarmac, shooting twice in the air and throwing two bottles on fire, a type of molotov cocktail, outside the passenger compartment, said a police spokesperson. Police said they believe a “child custody dispute was the cause” of the incident.
According to her, in the car there are a father and his child. The daily Bild indicates that the man is 35 years old and of Turkish nationality, and that the child is a little girl aged 4. Police said the negotiations were taking place in Turkish.
Previously, the wife of the driver of the car had alerted the police of the child’s kidnapping, a police spokesperson said, he added.
The father took refuge in his vehicle at the foot of a Turkish Airlines airliner.
On Saturday evening, 17 flights scheduled to land in Hamburg, with 3,200 people on board, had to be diverted. For Sunday, 286 flights are in principle planned, carrying 34,500 passengers.