Three French prison officers were killed and two others wounded on Tuesday in an attack on a prison van transporting an inmate who subsequently escaped, according to police sources reported by AFP.
The attack occurred late in the morning at a road toll in Incarville, located in the Eure region of northern France.
The inmate was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy.
The attack was carried out by several individuals who arrived in two vehicles and later fled the scene.
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One of the attackers was also wounded, but it was not immediately clear how many attackers were involved in total.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti confirmed the attack on the prison convoy and announced he was heading to a crisis cell at his ministry on X (formerly Twitter).
This incident follows another recent violent attack. Last Thursday, a man arrested for allegedly attacking a woman with a box cutter shot and seriously wounded two officers at a Paris police station after grabbing one of their weapons.
This occurred in the French capital’s 13th district shortly before 10:30 pm (2030 GMT), with one of the officers sustaining life-threatening injuries.
