Six armed inmates in a southern Taiwanese prison have committed suicide, ending a hostage crisis that lasted 14 hours.
The six inmates shot themselves in the early hours on Thursday. Both hostages are now safe. The inmates had seized weapons from the armory at a prison in Kaohsiung a day before, and took the warden and a head guard hostage.
The inmates, who were serving sentences for various crimes, including drug offenses, robbery, and murder, demanded a getaway car. Their statement showed that they were unhappy with the lack of prospects for release.
Around 4:45am, the inmates fired at the police, who then returned fire. Later, justice ministry officials confirmed that four of the inmates had shot themselves. The officials also said that 20 minutes later, the remaining two hostage-takers fired some shots at their co-conspirators, apparently to make sure they were dead, before turning their guns on themselves.
On Thursday President Ma Ying-jeou commented on the incident.
"The hostage-taking incident in the Kaohsiung prison shocked the whole nation and showed that prison management is flawed, Ma said. "I have instructed the Cabinet to demand a high degree of alertness from the Ministry of Justice and all corrections agencies. [The authorities need to] calm all the prisoners and fundamentally review the current prison management practices."
In a media interview, Justice Minister Lo Ying-shay said the ministry had hoped the incident would end peacefully.
"We certainly hoped that [the inmates] would drop their weapons and turn themselves in so that the crisis would end peacefully. Although they still kept some rationality and did not hurt the prison warden or the head guard, their feelings of despair just did not go away," Lo said. "I guess they had already made up their mind that if they could not get what they wanted, they would take their own lives."