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Hostage facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

A hostage is a person who is held captive against his or her will. Hostages are often taken (held captive) to force someone else to do something for their captors (the people who took them hostage). Hostages are taken for many different reasons.

  • Kidnapping is the act of taking a hostage and asking for a sum of money, called ransom. If the ransom is paid, the hostage is freed.
  • Hostages may be taken for political reasons. This is mostly done as a form of terrorism.

Images for kids

  • Hostage exercise

    Police often train to recover hostages taken by force, as in this exercise.

  • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - gislas sealde (British Library Cotton MS Tiberius A VI, folio 19r)

    "Gislas" was an Old English word for "hostages", proving that the practice was commonplace in England long before the word "hostage" was coined.

  • Laurens - Hostages

    "Hostages", 1896 painting by Jean-Paul Laurens, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon

  • Announcement of death of 100 of Polish hostages executed in occupied Warsaw after the death of Franz Kutschera (February 1944)

    German announcement of the execution of 100 Polish hostages as revenge for death of 2 Germans in Warsaw, occupied Poland, February 1944

  • Train hostages

    A British armoured railway wagon behind a railcar on which two Arab hostages are seated, Palestine Mandate, 1936

  • Hostage Rescue Team members

    Hostage Rescue Team agents

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Rehén para niños

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