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There are few events more terrifying to imagine living through than a hostage situation. Being kidnapped and removed from your life, to act as a bargaining chip in the demands of terrorists, is a horrific prospect. Unfortunately, there have been many instances of hostage crises over the past few decades, with many fatalities in some cases. Others had dramatic endings, with heroic displays of bravery and skill by secret police.
Intrigued? Click on to discover some of the most harrowing hostage crises in history.
This crisis took place during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. Eleven Israeli team athletes were taken as captives and eventually killed, along with a German officer.
The Palestinian militant organization Black September were responsible, demanding the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli prisons. Eight of the terrorist group’s members were killed during the failed rescue attempt.
On January 29, 2013, Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old Vietnam War veteran, hijacked a Dale County school bus and killed its driver. He also took Ethan, a five-year old student from Midland Elementary School, as hostage.
The crisis came to an end five days later when officers forced through the bunker, killing Dykes and finally freeing Ethan.
On October 7, 2023, Palestinian militants abducted around 250 people to the Gaza Strip. Hamas is demanding the release of all Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of the hostages.
On November 25, 2023, 41 hostages were released by Hamas as part of a ceasefire deal. Another exchange of captives occurred on November 26, with the release of 17 hostages. Eleven Israeli hostages were released on November 27. Several countries have been involved in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, lead by Qatar.
On October 31, 2010, during a Sunday evening mass, an Al-Qaeda-linked Sunni rebel group attacked Our Lady of Salvation, a Catholic cathedral, in Baghdad, Iraq.
The attack left 58 people dead. More than 100 were taken as hostages, 19 of whom were able to escape. The four-hour siege resulted in the death of 41 hostages.
James Lee took three people as hostages in the lobby of the Discovery company’s headquarters in Silver Springs, Maryland, on September 1, 2010.
After four hours of lockdown, evacuation, and negotiations, the hostages were rescued and Lee was shot dead by the police.
Three armed Palestinian radicals of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine entered Israel from Lebanon on May 15, 1974. This two-day hostage-taking situation involved 115 people, 105 of them children. The hostage-takers demanded the release of 23 Palestinian militants from Israeli prisons or the students would be killed.
The hostage-takers killed their victims with grenades and automatic weapons, when the Golani Brigade stormed the building after two days. The massacre ended in the death of 28 hostages, including 22 children.
Patricia Campbell Hearst, an American newspaper heiress, socialite, and occasional actress, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in 1974. She is the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.
She eventually joined in the causes of her captors and was apprehended with other SLA members while robbing a bank. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but President Bill Clinton granted her a presidential pardon in 2001, as her actions were attributed to Stockholm syndrome.
This series of abductions took place in Lebanon between 1982 and 1992. It involved 96 foreign nationals being taken as captives.
The perpetrators used different names, though they all belonged to the same Hezbollah organization. These terrorist acts were viewed as "insurance against retaliation by the US, Syrian, and other forces."
On November 4, 1979, 52 US diplomats were taken hostage when the American embassy was stormed by a group of Islamist students in support of the Iranian revolution.
A number of negotiations for release failed, and a rescue operation was aborted. The crisis ended with the signing of the Algiers Accord on January 19, 1981. The hostages had been held for 444 days.
During the First Chechen War, guerrillas raided a military airbase. The assault led the Russian military to pursue them. The guerrillas entered the town itself and took 2,000 to 3,400 civilian hostages. Fighting ensued and the rebels then fled to Pervomayskoye, where they seized an additional 100 hostages. The extent of civilian casualties is unknown, however, as the Russian army did not permit journalists to access the village.
On May 8, 1972, a scheduled flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv was hijacked by a group of two men and two women from the Palestinian Black September organization. Hijackers separated the Jews from the non-Jews and sent them back to the aircraft. They demanded the release of 315 Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. A rescue operation the next day killed the two men and captured the two women hijackers.
On September 1, 2004, a group of armed terrorists, led by Shamil Basayev, who were demanding the end of the Second Chechen War, took more than 1,100 people (including nearly 800 children) as hostages in the school.
Russian security forces stormed the building with tanks and incendiary rockets on the third day of the standoff, resulting in the deaths of over 380 people.
On December 24, 1994, Air France Flight 8969 was hijacked by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria at Houari Boumediene Airport. The terrorists murdered three passengers, and their intention was either to crash the plane over the Eiffel Tower or the Tour Montparnasse in Paris.
The aircraft reached Marseille Marignane airport on December 26, 1994, for refueling. There it was stormed by the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), a counter-terror unit of the French National Gendarmerie, killing all four hijackers and allowing for the release of the hostages on board.
On August 23, 2010, a disgruntled ex-Philippine National Police officer named Rolando Mendoza, who felt unfairly dismissed from his job, hijacked a tourist bus carrying 20 holidaymakers from Hong Kong.
Mendoza opened fire and a shoot-out with the Manila Police District began. The bus driver managed to escape, but Mendoza along with eight of the hostages were killed. The others on board were injured. The MPD’s failure at a rescue attempt and the bungled shoot-out was watched worldwide via television and the internet.
On January 16, 2013, a group of Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, captured 800 people at the Tigantourine gas facility in In Amenas, Algeria. It resulted in the deaths of 39 foreign hostages along with an Algerian security guard.
Four days into the standoff, Algerian forces stormed the facility, leading to a total of 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners being freed, while three of the terrorists were captured.
The crowded Dubrovka Theater was seized by Chechen terrorists on October 23, 2002. They took 850 people hostage, demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War.
The standoff ended with the deaths of 172 people when Russian security services stormed the building on the morning of October 26, 2002, after pumping gas into the hall.
On March 11, a passenger train carrying 440 people was hijacked by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in Balochistan, Pakistan. The train was forced to stop when terrorists blew up part of the track before storming the carriages and taking hundreds of passengers hostage.
The BLA, a separatist group seeking Balochistan’s independence, threatened to execute all hostages if the military attempted a rescue. Security forces launched a prolonged operation, ultimately freeing nearly 350 passengers over two days. The terrorists, some wearing explosive vests, engaged in intense gunfire before being neutralized by the military. A total of 21 hostages were killed.
Sources: (List25) (The New York Times) (The Guardian) (CNN)
See also: Meet the most famous victims of Stockholm syndrome
History's most infamous hostage crises
Intense, nightmare situations from around the world
LIFESTYLE Terrorism
There are few events more terrifying to imagine living through than a hostage situation. Being kidnapped and removed from your life, to act as a bargaining chip in the demands of terrorists, is a horrific prospect. Unfortunately, there have been many instances of hostage crises over the past few decades, with many fatalities in some cases. Others had dramatic endings, with heroic displays of bravery and skill by secret police.
Intrigued? Click on to discover some of the most harrowing hostage crises in history.