World News for Students of English

27-06-2016 15:00

The aftermath of a hostage situation in Germany: armed police patrol the area while emergency medics stand down. Today could have been much worse.

Earlier, a masked man took hostages at a cinema south of Frankfurt, holding what’s thought to have been a rifle, but the situation was short-lived.

“It came to a meeting between police and the perpetrator in the cinema. The operational forces made use of firearms, the perpetrator was injured and succumbed to his injuries.”

There was only one casualty of today’s attack – the gunman himself. His identity, or indeed motive for the attack, is not yet known.

“There were hostages or hostage-taking you can call it. The hostage-taking of course called for the challenging of the perpetrator, to constrain the person somehow. It’s not to my knowledge right now, if that actually took place or if the people were only held in the building by the perpetrator. I cannot say anything about the hostage-taking right now or the direct impact of the perpetrator or police injuries – I am aware of nothing.” 

Difficult words: aftermath (the situation after an event), rifle (a long gun), perpetrator (a person who does something bad), operational forces (people in combat), succumb to (die from), indeed (this word is used to emphasise something – stress it, make more important).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com