Hostage-takers said they killed a two-year-old Canadian boy with a bullet to the head as punishment for crying too much during a tense standoff at a school in northern Cambodia.

There is conflicting information about the boy's identity. There are unconfirmed reports that the boy was born in Victoria, B.C.

The situation developed early Thursday, when four masked men armed with shotguns entered the Siem Reap International School and took a classroom of kindergarten students captive.

The gunmen demanded $30,000 US in cash, weapons and a van to drive across the border into Thailand. If their demands weren't met, they threatened to kill their 29 young hostages, one by one.

At one point, gunfire was heard from inside the school.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said the cash and vehicle were given to the hostage-takers, but the demands for guns and grenades were not met.

The attackers were lured to the vehicle, and got into the minivan with four children in tow. That's when authorities stormed in.

Authorities managed to rescue all but one of the hostages and the hostage takers were arrested.

The Canadian child was rushed from the school to a nearby clinic, where he was pronounced dead. He had been shot in the head.

The gunmen reportedly killed the boy when authorities declined to meet all of their demands, Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said, quoting the deputy national police chief, Neth Savoeun.

"Something went horribly wrong during the six-hour siege and suddenly there was a burst of gunfire," CTV's Steve Chao reported Thursday.

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew expressed his condolences.

"We are chagrined and hurt to have learned the terrible news this morning of the assassination of that child," Pettigrew told reporters.

According to Minister Pettigrew's parliamentary secretary, Liberal MP Dan McTeague, Canadian officials are now on the scene.

"They have been there for several hours, keeping us in constant contact," he said.

"Hopefully they will be able to make contact with the family."

Motive Unknown

The crisis unfolded at Cambodia's tourism hub of Siem Reap, near its famed 800-year-old Angkor Wat temples.

"The temples draw about a million tourists every year. In recent years, a lot of hotels have been built there and a lot of ex-pat families have come to run the tourist hotels," Chao said.

"And so in that school, there were several dozen children from different nationalities."

The children held hostage Thursday may represent as many as 15 different nationalities.

The attackers' motives were not immediately clear, though Kanharith speculated that the hostage takers were "rogue elements'' hired to hurt tourism in Siem Reap.

He also wondered if the men were part of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, an anti-government group that launched a failed armed attack in Cambodia in November 2000.

"We don't know since they are covering their faces with masks,'' he said.

Deputy Military Police Commander Prak Chanthoeum said the men were villagers from the province of Kandal, who decided to prey on foreign children because they thought their parents were rich.

Adding to the confusion, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said they appeared to be security guards at the school. Teachers, however, later said they did not recognize the men.

With a report from CTV's Steve Chao