A contingent of villagers in Vietnam released 19 government officials they had been holding captive, ending a week-long standoff over land rights.
In a statement signed by Mayor Nguyen Duc Chung and read out over loudspeakers, the mayor promised not to prosecute the villagers involved in the hostage crisis and said their land grievances would be addressed, the online newspaper Vnexpress reported.
The incident began on Saturday in Dong Tam commune, in Hanoi's My Duc district, when authorities clashed with villagers who alleged their land had been illegally seized for sale by a military-owned telecoms firm.
The confrontation, over a long simmering land dispute, came to a peaceful end on Saturday, with the residents of Dong Tam Commune releasing their remaining 19 hostages.
The villagers held 38 officials and police officers at a community house, but they later released 15 riot police, while three others managed to escape.
Before the two-hour dialogue on Saturday, villagers had removed barricades that had been erected around the village.
People in Dong Tam, 40 km (25 miles) from the center of Hanoi, say they were given insufficient compensation by authorities taking over residential land for a telecommunications project.
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The authorities maintain that the farmers have illegally occupied land earmarked for the military almost 40 years ago, which was allocated to Viettel in 2015 to build a defense-related project.
Another villager said: "We are really looking forward to the result of the inspection and that the authority will help bring justice to us".
"It's hard to tell how the authorities want to solve this case", he said.
"We admit it was wrong to hold these people", Tuoi Tre quoted villager Bui Van Ky as saying during the meeting with the mayor.
Chung said the city government had chose to inspect the land and the findings will be announced within 45 days.
"Behind property projects were thousands of farmer families who lost their land and faced prospects of being poor from generation to generation because they have no other jobs to do other than farming", she said.
Disputes over land rights are common in Vietnam because the government does not recognise private land ownership.
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