An allegedly armed man took hostages at a post office in Japan this Tuesday (31).
The action took place around 2:15 pm local time (2:15 am Brasília time), when the suspect took the hostages at a post office in the city of Warabi, in Saitama Prefecture, located northwest of Tokyo.
According to police, the attacker has an object that appears to be a firearm. Authorities asked around 300 residents in the area to leave their homes, according to television station TBS.
According to the Yomiuri newspaper, around 10 agency employees may be in the building.
The incident occurred as police were investigating a shooting that occurred earlier in the same area and left two people injured. There is no information yet on how the people were injured or whether the two incidents are related.
Images published in local media show a man wearing a baseball cap and a dark coat inside the post office holding an object that appears to be a gun in his hand.
Violent crime is infrequent in Japan, where the homicide rate is low and firearms legislation is one of the strictest in the world.
However, the archipelago has recently been dealing with several attacks, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, shot with a homemade firearm during an election campaign speech in July last year.
In April, the current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, was targeted by an improvised explosive device, also at an election event. Kishida was unharmed, but two people were slightly injured.
