The authorities say that New Zealand’s father escaped nearly 4 years with his children with the hands of the police.

Lamington, New Zealand – The law enforcement said that the man who escaped from the authorities with his three children in the Nigerian -Nigerian countryside for nearly four years was killed by a police officer on Monday.

One of the children with Tom Philips was at the time of the confrontation, and two other children were found in the forests hours after the shooting, when an officer was seriously injured.

Philips and his children disappeared – about 9, 10 and 11 years old in December – they have been associated with years during their experience in the dense forest area where they believed that the family was hiding. It was not believed that the father and children had traveled away from the rural settlement on the isolated northern island in Marukuba where they lived, and the reliable scenes were rare.

Philips has not been officially identified, but the authorities believed that the man was killed.

Jill Rogers, New Zealand Police Commissioner, Jill Rogers, told reporters in Hamilton, a police officer stated in the head and was seriously injured during a confrontation with Philips after he stole an agricultural supplies store early Monday morning. The child was held with Philips at the time of robbery.

The officer was undergoing hospital surgery. Rogers said his injuries were survival, but he was shot “several times with a high -power gun” and additional surgeries were expected.

Rogers said earlier that the location of two other children in Philips was not known as the shooting, and the authorities had serious fears of them.

About 13 hours after their father was killed, Rogers told the correspondents that the children had been found not accompanied by a distant camp site in a rugged forest. She said that the child who was detained on the two had cooperated with the authorities, which enabled them to narrow the search area.

On Monday, the Farm Supplies Store was in a small town in the same sprawling agricultural area in Waikato, south of Auckland, where the settlement of about 40 people disappeared.

Tom Philips Saga New Zealand families

The New Zealand issue has been fragmented and the authorities provided unsuccessful appeals to the information.

Philips was scenes It is limited to monitoring footage This showed that he commits crimes in the area. He was required to steal an armed bank in May 2023, accompanied by one of his children, which was reported that he had shot a audience.

Philips had no legal nursery rights for his children, the supreme sergeant of the investigator. Andrew Sonders told reporters in 2024. When Philips and the children disappeared, the police said the battle of nursery. The authorities said that children have not been able to reach official education or health care since their disappearance.

The law is always believed that Phillips helps to hide his family, and some residents of the rural area, isolated from his support for him. A reward of $ 80,000 New Zealand ($ 47,000), according to New Zealand standards, was offered for information about the family’s place last June, but it was never paid.

December 2021 was not the first time that Phillips asked for national news headlines after he disappeared with his children. The family was lost in September, when it was launched in search of a three -week land and sea after a deserted Philips truck was found on Berri beach near the place where he lived.

The authorities eventually ended the research, and concluded that the family might have died, before Philips emerged from a dense forest where he said they were grabbing. He was charged with wasting the police resources and was scheduled to appear before the court in January 2022, but weeks before the specified date, he and the children disappeared again.

The police did not immediately launch an inspection because Philips, who was in the open air, told the family that he was taking children on another trip. no longer.

The research intensified again after several scenes from Philips in 2023 in the same area where he disappeared.

Philips and his children were seen in October 2024 when a group of teenage swine fishermen watched them around the jungle and imagined the meeting on their phones.

He was Also seen on the observation video last month While stole a grocery store at night, accompanied by one of his children.

The mother of the children issued a statement of New Zealand Radio on Monday that she said was “very comfortable” because the “ordeal” of her children had ended.

“They were lost dearly every day nearly four years, and we are looking forward to welcoming them at home with love and care,” said the woman, who was identified in news in New Zealand only with her first name.

The Philips family had appealed to Philips by Philips to surrender and return the children.

“There is a lot of love and there is a lot of support, and we are ready to help you walk what you need to walk,” his sister, Rozzi Phillips,. New Zealand told the news site In an exclusive interview last month.