Paris supermarket shooting: Father and three-year-old son hid in fridge for five hours

​Amid one of France's bloodiest weeks in decades, authorities are praising quick-thinking survivors.

A father and his three-year-old son, who were stuck in the kosher supermarket that was taken hostage, managed to hide in a refrigerator.

The father, Ilan, hid in the supermarket's refrigeration unit for nearly five hours, after Amedy Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene stormed the store with weapons.

Ilan, who is in his 30s, quickly removed his jacket and wrapped his son in it to protect the toddler from the frigid temperatures. Hidden in the cold, they and the other hostages remained in the refrigerator.

Police used father's phone to track his location inside the store

Ilan's mother did not text him as she knew that they might have been hiding. 

However, she gave Ilan's number to law enforcement, who managed to track the location of the father and son - and three other hostages.

This information may have contributed to the hostages' survival when police finally stormed the store and killed Coulibaly.

Hayat Boumeddiene remains at large.

Employee took refuge "under a sink"

As the supermarket was under attack, a printing business had also been seized - by Cherif and Said Kouachi, the two gunmen responsible for the Charlie Hedbo attack on Jan 7. 

An employee of the printing business, a 26-year-old graphic designer name Lilian, took refuge "under a sink in the canteen" upstairs. Believed to be responsible for the fatal shootings of 12 people at the headquarters of satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hedbo. 

He then began communicating with police via text and sent them "tactical elements such as his location inside the premises."

Lilian could hear the suspects talking, which both helped reassure him and gave him more information to send to the forces poised outside, the source said.

The employee, unharmed, was taken to police headquarters, where he was quickly reunited with his family, another source close to the case said, adding that the young man was “shocked” but "okay”.

Source: AFP

Related report: Gunmen who killed 12 at Charlie Hebdo office in Paris killed; Gunman who took people hostage in Jewish supermarket also killed