A well-known robber with links to organised crime on Saturday blasted his way out of jail with explosives and took five staff hostage in northern France, officials said. Police and helicopters were trying to track the man, who was armed, after his brazen escape from the prison in the town of Sequedin. Local administrative officials said the prisoner used explosives to blast through an airlock security door before making his way out of the facility with five staff hostages.

A Serbian war veteran on Tuesday went from house to house in his village near Belgrade, shooting dead 13 relatives and neighbours -- including his son, his mother and a two-year-old child, police said. It was the worst such incident in two decades in the Balkan country, where the government announced Wednesday would be a day of national mourning. The 60-year-old, identified as Ljubisa Bogdanovic, shot most of his victims in the head as they slept before trying to kill himself and his wife.

A man in southern Russia took four people hostage for several hours on Thursday in a bizarre abduction where his first demand was a takeaway pizza and a fizzy drink, police said. Armed with a fake pistol and explosives, the 25-year-old burst into a college in the city of Astrakhan located 1,500 kilometres southeast of Moscow, and took four people hostage. After several hours he released the two female students, a teacher and a security guard unharmed.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A man armed with a pistol took two girls and a teacher hostage at a school in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan on Thursday, Russian news agencies reported. There were no reports of demands from the man and Reuters could not immediately reach police for comment in the city near the Caspian Sea. "A man armed with a pistol has taken two girls hostage - it is not known whether they are students - and also a teacher," Interfax news agency quoted a law enforcement official as saying.