Irish children held hostage with classmates in six-hour ordeal

THE Irish father of two young children caught up in the horror of the Siem Reap school siege was on his way back to Cambodia last night to be reunited with his family.

Dara McMahon, aged four, and his two-year-old sister, Monica, were held hostage by an armed gang for six hours along with classmates and teachers at the international school for children of ex-pats and Western workers.

Their Clare-born father, David McMahon, a programme manager with the Halo Trust de-mining charity, was working in Georgia when he got word of the attack on the school and immediately left for Cambodia.