A YANGON man had some anxious moments earlier this month after a hostage drama at an international school in Cambodia where his wife is vice-principal.

U Maung Maung Gyi said he and his relatives tried continuously to telephone his wife, Daw Khin Mya Swe, after learning about the drama on Singapore’s Channel NewsAsia satellite television service on June 16.

“I became worried when we could not get through to her for a couple of hours,” U Maung Muang Gyi told Myanmar Times on June 17.

“It was a relief when I was finally able to speak to her when it was all over,” he said.

The drama at an international school at Siem Reap, near the famed temples of Angkor Wat, also involved another Myanmar teacher, Daw May Myo Chit.

She was teaching her kindergarten class when four men armed with one gun burst into the room.

The gunmen took about 30 children and some teachers hostage. News of the incident spread quickly and the gunmen began negotiating for the release of the hostages with police who surrounded the school.

Police said the gunmen shot dead a two-year-old Canadian boy to show they were serious in their demands for weapons, cash and a getaway vehicle.

The gunmen were overpowered several hours after the drama began when they tried to flee the school in a van with some of the children, most of whom were aged under seven and came from more than a dozen countries.

Police later quoted the gunmen as saying that they planned the incident to kill two South Korean children in revenge after their father had slapped one of gang members who had been his driver.

News agencies quoted court officials in Siem Reap as saying the four main suspects had been charged with premeditated murder, kidnapping and other offences and could face life jail terms if convicted.

They said another three men had been charged with being accomplices and an eighth suspect was still at large.

The parents of most of the children at the school work in hotels at Siem Reap.