Sydney siege: Lindt cafe hostage Marcia Mikhael’s Facebook postSydney siege: Lindt cafe hostage Marcia Mikhael’s Facebook post



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						Sydney siege hostage Marcia Mikhael’s chilling Facebook post: ‘He is threatening to kill us’
				





by:
TAYLOR AUERBACH  


From:

The Daily Telegraph



December 16, 2014
5:46AM






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Hostages escape Sydney siege
                1:07




Play video








                    One by one, a number of hostages escape from the Lindt caf. Courtesy Channel Nine
                




news.com.au
16 Dec 2014

News






 
 
 



				MARCIA Mikhael, huddled with her fellow hostages inside the Lindt Café on Martin Place, sent the chilling plea out early yesterday afternoon.
				



“Please help,” she wrote on her Facebook account.Relaying the trauma from inside Sydney’s maiden terror attack, the Westpac executive and fitness business owner delivered a rolling eyewitness account of the unfolding horror in a series of gut-churning posts.







Facebook plea ... Westpac executive and fitness business owner Marcia Mikhael begged her friends and family for help. Picture: Facebook
Source: Supplied




“Dear friends and family,” she began.“I’m at the Lindt Café at Martin Place being held hostage by a member of the ISI. The man who is keeping us hostage has asked for small and simple requests and none have been met.“He is now threatening to start killing us. We need help right now. The man wants the world to know that Australia is under attack by the Islamic State.”







Marcia Mikhael is carried by police rescue after armed response officers entered the building during the siege. Picture: AP
Source: AP




Her words would not have been believed but for the extraordinary images beamed live to television sets across the globe.They amounted to an astonishing account of a siege that will forever live on in infamy.“The member of the Islamic State who has taken us hostages says: ‘I have heard the news that politicians are not telling the truth to media about the motivation.’”







Hostage situation ... an armed policeman looks on from near the besieged cafe in Martin Place. Picture: Don Arnold/Getty Images
Source: Getty Images




These were the words of an ordinary and successful Australian woman caught up in an unprecedented act of hatred as she bought her morning coffee.Ms Mikhael, 42, from Glenwood, owns a fitness training business and once worked for the NSW Police force.As the standoff intensified yesterday, worried family members also took to Facebook with equally desperate pleas.They asked for silence.“Please do not share any statuses on (Facebook) from the hostages,” wrote niece Christine Mikhael.“Please do not share or spread any messages released by the hostages as the terrorist is using them as a means of communication.“This could put my aunty and the others in grave danger.”







Astonishing account ... Marcia Mikhael found herself caught up in an unprecedented act of hatred as she bought her morning coffee. Picture: Facebook
Source: Supplied




@nswpolice #SydneySiege Please Help that is my untie Marcia Mikhael she is currently being hostage pic.twitter.com/YhVvzOiI5E— GDO (@GhioDeOliveira) December 15, 2014 
Then — in the dark, dark hours before sunrise this morning — Marcia Mikhael emerged from inside the cafe.Wailing in unimaginable pain, she was carried on the shoulders of emergency services personnel to a waiting ambulance.Still clad in the business suit she wore to work, she was wounded but safe.The image of survival will become a defining one in the minds of people around the world who will for human triumph and denounce evil, who understand the power of innate goodness.Her family members described the photo as the best they have ever seen.But nearby, two other hostages lay dead.That, we can neither ever let ourselves forget.






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