This image taken from video show people holding up what appeared to be a black flag with white Arabic writing on it, inside a cafe in Sydney, Australia Monday, Dec. 15, 2014. An apparent hostage situation was unfolding inside the chocolate shop and cafe in Australia's largest city on Monday, where several people could be seen through a window with their hands held in the air. (AP Photo/Channel 7 vide AP Video) AUSTRALIA OUT
This image taken from video show people holding up what appeared to be a black flag with white Arabic writing on it (AP Photo/Channel 7 video)

Major banks closed their offices in Sydney’s central business district today and people were told to avoid the area.

Shops in a four block radius were shut, leaving large parts of the area all but deserted by mid-afternoon.

Ray Hadley, a popular radio jockey, said he had been contacted by a hostage and could hear the suspected gunman issuing orders in the background. Police declined to comment on Hadley’s claim.

According to Mail Online, the mother an 18-year-old man in the cafe also told the DJ that she had received a text message saying ‘I’m OK mum, can’t talk’.

That was the last that she has heard from him since the situation unfolded.

Hadley also said: ‘There are some people who are not well. They’re distraught. I can hear the person in the background issuing instructions. One person is quite ill [and] needs medical attention.’

Armed police officers point as they stand at the ready close to a cafe under siege at Martin Place in Sydney, Australia, Monday, Dec. 15, 2014. A gunman took an unknown number of people hostage inside a downtown Sydney chocolate shop and cafe at the height of Monday morning rush hour, with two people inside the cafe seen holding up a flag believed to contain an Islamic declaration of faith. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)
Armed police officers point as they stand at the ready close to the cafe (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)

Speaking about demands made by the hostage-takers, he added: ‘The media can’t play a role in negotiating with people purporting to be from Islamic State holding hostages in a cafe in Sydney.’


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Dozens of heavily armed police surrounded the cafe in Martin Place after the siege began around 9.45am local time . The area is home to the Reserve Bank of Australia, commercial banks and close to the New South Wales state parliament.

‘I walked up to the door and then everyone was sitting down and the door’s locked which is pretty weird because it’s never locked and there was one guy walking around with a hat and a beard,’ a man who identified himself as Bruno, a worker at the cafe, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp, referring to the suspected assailant. He said he then turned away.

Several hours into the siege, police led about two dozen people out of a building opposite the cafe and through the cordon. Others were evacuated from the building above the cafe by ladder, television pictures showed.

Earlier, Lindt Australia Chief Executive Steve Loane told Sky Business there were about 10 staff working at the cafe and ‘probably 30 customers’ although he said that figure was an estimate.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said staff had been locked down inside the building, and were all safe and accounted for.

The nearby U.S. consulate was also evacuated, according to an embassy spokeswoman, along with the Sydney Opera House. Tourists were being let back into the world-famous venue by early afternoon.