Massive Manhunt After French Prison Officers Killed, Inmate Escapes In Ambush

Incarville, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th May, 2024) French police were on Tuesday hunting for a group of gunmen who killed two prison officers in an attack at a motorway toll that freed a convict linked to gangland drug killings.

President Emmanuel Macron vowed that everything would be done to find those behind the attack, with the inmate also still at large as well as those who helped him escape.

Two prison officers were killed in the attack and three others wounded, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.

Another was fighting for his life in hospital and two more were receiving critical care, she said.

The incident took place late on Tuesday morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France.

The inmate was being transported after being questioned by a judge in the regional centre of Rouen in Normandy back to his prison in the town of Evreux.

The prosecutor said the prison van was rammed head-on by a stolen Peugeot vehicle as it went through the toll crossing.

But the prison vehicle was also followed by an Audi from which gunmen emerged who shot at both vehicles in the prison convoy.

"Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime," Macron wrote on X.

"We will be uncompromising," he added, describing the attack as a "shock".

French television channels broadcast footage of the attack taken by surveillance cameras at the toll, showing the vehicle colliding head on with the prison van.

In the video, the doors of the car are flung open and several gunmen dressed in black emerge. A firefight ensues and one individual appears to be guided away from the van by the gunmen.

A vehicle believed to have been used by the attackers was later found as a burned-out wreck at a different location.