Minutes. So when that statement comes, well, of course bring it to you. And of course all of this ongoing in sydney as it comes up on 6 00 local time. This siege going on now for more than eight hours. Im john vause at the cnn center in atlanta. And im natalie allen. We have been with you for several hours, and we will push on as this situation in australia continues. It is breaking news of a siege there in a coffee shop that has been ongoing. A gunman Holding People hostage at the lindt coffee shop in downtown sydney. Sky news has just informed us that the gunman is calling himself the brother, and has contacted a Radio Station and two tv stations via hostages
with demands, a conversation with the Prime Minister and an isil flag. We do know five people have managed to get out. Three men were seen running out two hours ago. Two of them were customers. The man in the blue jacket, the man in the white zirs and a few moments later there was a man wearing an apron who appeared to be a work
So theres no training behind this. Theres no standard attack in any of this. So, actually, we can see it going any way. But i think the i think the longer it goes on without violence the more likely there wont be any. Welcome back, everybody. Im john vause at the cnn center. Im natalie allen. Thank you for joining us. Weve been here several hours with this breaking news out of australia. And we will continue to bring you the latest now. And wed like to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. Wed like to give you the update now. A gunman is Still Holding an unknown number of people at a lindt coffee shop in sydneys Main Business district. Sky News Australia reports that the Hostage Taker, seen here, is calling himself the brother. He has forced hostages to speak with three Media Outlets over the phone. He apparently has two demands. He wants an isis flag. He also wants a conversation with australias Prime Minister. We also have video of five hostages who manag
that would be unlikely that that would happen. and ray hadley also telling us that he was speaking to the gunman by the 23-year-old hostage who was inside that cafe, and he could hear the gunman in the background. he spoke with a middle eastern ak sechbt with an australian tinge. he didn t sound very rational. he did threaten as ray described it, to dispose of hostages, which is an indication that he would be inclined to kill some hostages, but there s no indication that anybody inside that cafe has been hurt. i was wanting to ask him, too bad that we did have to go away from him to take the news conference, which we didn t learn very much from, but what was the demeanor of that young hostage that was being kind of the filter the go between. for this gunman. we ve been talking about whether these three men who got out first, followed by the two
he had a middle eastern accent with an australian tinge. he was obviously someone originally from that part of the world, be it iran or syria or somewhere else over there. and you know, we have been a country like your country very welcoming of people from that part of the world. we have a long tradition of lebanese christians coming to australia, particularly of the maronite variety, over a long period of time and more recently people of the muslim faith coming here. and the vast majority of them are peaceful, hard-working, decent people who want to mac a better life for themselves. but we have these radicals highlighted by this lunatic who still has somewhere between 12 and 25 people being held hostage. the police know, john, how many people are in there but they won t release details to the media. five have escaped, but we know originally there was somewhere between 15 and perhaps 30. sow take a guess, it s either 10 people in there or 25 people. we don t know. you say he threat
was he yelling? what kind of accent he had? caller: he had a middle eastern accent with an australi australian tinge. we have been a country like your country, very welcoming of people from that part of the world. we have a long tradition of lebanese christians coming to sfr australia. and more recently, people of the muslim faith. the vast majority are peaceful, hard-working people who want to make a life for themselves. but we have these radicals, lunatics who have between 12 and 25 people holding hostage. the police know, but they won t release the number. originally there were somewhere between 15 and 30. so you take a guess. it s either ten people in there or 25. we don t know. now you say he threatened to