After nearly a week-long standoff between security forces and a group of armed gunmen, the remaining four police officers who had been held hostage in Armenia were released on Saturday.
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The group of 30 gunmen seized the police station on July 17, killing a police officer, wounding two others and taking hostage nine officers.
The gunmen also are still holding hostage three members of an ambulance crew who were providing treatment to two wounded attackers who remained inside the station.
The group has demanded the resignation of the ex-Soviet nation’s President Serzh Sarkisian and the release of Sefilyan.
A high-ranking police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information, said the gunmen were hit in the legs by snipers after emerging from the station.
In addition to denying the militants access to the press, the police have stopped food deliveries to the compound where the gunmen are housed.
The US embassy in Yerevan released a statement regarding the hostage crisis saying, “We are especially concerned by media reports today that medical personnel have been detained in the Erebuni Police building”.
“Two members of the armed group which seized the police building in Yerevan, Gagik Egiazaryan and Aram Akopyan, have surrendered to police”, Aharonian said on Facebook. The local police chief, Valery Osipyan, was among those taken hostage, authorities have confirmed to Armenian news agency Arminfo.
A critic of the government, he was previously arrested in 2006 over calls for “a violent overthrow of the government” and jailed for 18 months. He was released in 2008.
The lengthy standoff has shaken the tiny Caucasus republic and sparked clashes between police and protesters furious over the handling of the incident.
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The hostage drama took a turn for the worse a week ago as protesters sympathetic to the hostage-takers clashed with police, resulting in at least 45 injuries.
