A French official confirms police have killed the 2 attackers who used knives to take hostages in a church.
Two attackers seized hostages Tuesday in a church near the Normandy city of Rouen, killing a priest by slitting his throat before being shot and killed by police, French officials said.
Another person inside the church was seriously injured and is hovering between life and death, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.
Police managed to rescue three people from the church in the small town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Brandet said. The hostage-taking occurred during morning Mass, he told reporters.
The identities of the attackers and motive for the attack are unclear, according to a security official, who was not authorized to be publicly named.
French President Francois Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve were heading to the town, which lies in north-central France.
Brandet, speaking on BFM TV, said the RAID special intervention force was searching the church and its perimeter for possible explosives and terrorism investigators had been summoned.
The incident comes as France is under high alert after an attack in Nice that killed 84 people and a string of deadly attacks last year claimed by the Islamic State group.
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen identified the slain priest as 84-year-old Father Jacques Hamel.
In a statement from Krakow, Poland, where Pope Francis was visiting, Lebrun says “I cry out to God, with all men of good will. And I invite all non-believers to unite with this cry … The Catholic Church has no other arms besides prayer and fraternity between men.”
