Huge manhunt in France as gunmen kill two guards and free inmate from van – as it happened (2024)

• Gunmen attacked a prison van in Normandy, killing at least two prison officers and freeing the high-security inmate they were transporting.

• A huge manhunt is now underway.

• A police source said several individuals, who arrived in two vehicles, rammed the police van and fled.

• “Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime,” the president, Emmanuel Macron, wrote on X. “We will be uncompromising.”

• The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said “all means are being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes were mobilised.”

• The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said the attack had targeted the French republic and the justice system.

• The Paris prosecutor named the fugitive prisoner as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, saying that last week he had been convicted of aggravated robbery and also charged in a case of abduction leading to death.

• French authorities asked the public not to re-share videos of the incident on social media.

Elite French police are searching for gunmen who attacked a prison van in Normandy, killing at least two prison officers and freeing the high-security inmate they were transporting.

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, told parliament that two prison officers were killed and three others were seriously injured in the ambush at a motorway toll. Attal said the attack had targeted the French republic and the justice system. “The whole country is shocked by this attack of unprecedented violence,” he said after parliament held a minute’s silence for the officers.

The attack took place at around 11am in Incarville in the Eure region of Normandy. A high-security inmate was being transported from a courthouse in Rouen to a prison in Evreux.

A police source said several individuals, who arrived in two vehicles, rammed the police van and fled. One was wounded, the police source said. French media reported that the men were dressed in black, wearing balaclavas and heavily armed.

The Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau named the fugitive prisoner as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, saying that last week he had been convicted of aggravated robbery and also charged in a case of abduction leading to death.

Read the full story here.

The fugitive inmate, Mohamed Amra, had been indicted by prosecutors in Marseille for a kidnapping that led to a death, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, Reuters reported.

A hotline is available for people who witnessed today’s attack.

The French authorities have asked the public not to re-share videos of the attack circulating on social media.

Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, has said the war against drugs is the big war that must be waged internally.

Reuters cites police sources saying the fugitive inmate, Mohamed Amra, is a 30-year-old drug dealer from northern France.

One of the sources said Amra is suspected of ordering a murder in Marseille, and has ties to the city’s powerful “Blacks” gang.

Footage of the incident circulating on social media appears to show heavily armed men on a road, with a car crashed into a police van.

“They will pay,” the French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said in response to the attack.

The French justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, said two of the injured officers were in a particularly critical state, Reuters reported.

“Absolutely everything will be done to find the perpetrators of this despicable crime,” he told BFM TV. “These are people for whom life means nothing. They will be arrested, judged and punished according to the crime they committed.”

Here’s a map of today’s incident.

Today’s incident took place when an inmate was transported between Rouen and Evreux.

A police source told AFP that said several individuals, arriving in two vehicles, rammed a police van and then fled.

One of them was wounded, the police source said.

Here’s an image from the scene in the Eure region of France.

The escaped prisoner has been named by French media as Mohamed Amra, 30, known as “La Mouche” (The Fly).

Public prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Amra was under high surveillance and had recently been sentenced for burglary, and that he was under investigation for a kidnapping and homicide case in Marseille, the AP reported.

Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, has expressed his condolences to the families of the prison guards killed in the ambush this morning.

“All means are being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes were mobilised,” he said.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said this morning’s attack on prison guards was a “shock”.

“Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people,” he said.

France has launched a major manhunt after at least two prison guards were shot dead and three others were seriously injured in an ambush, Reuters reported.

Heavily armed men ambushed a prison van to free an inmate, French police said, triggering the major manhunt.