Released hostages say about 1,500 may be held at seized school.

Pravda.Ru
09/03/2004 11:03

All men, who attempted to show resistance to the terrorists, were killed.

Over a thousand people are likely to be held hostage in the North Ossetian town of Beslan in southern Russia. One of the released hostages, Adel Itskayeva, told a Gazeta correspondent there were 1,020 hostages in the seized school. When the woman was told the official data - 354 hostages, she was more than just surprised: "Are you crazy? There are 1,020 people in there!" the woman said.

Another released hostage, 27-year-old Zalina Dzandarova, said in an interview with the Kommersant that terrorists had seized not just about 400, but about 1,500 people at school. "People are lying on the floor next to one another. The terrorists separated us. Those, who did not feel very good, were placed in locker rooms. They made male hostages break the windows, because it was too stuffy in the gym," Dzandarova said. The woman also said that there were a lot of wounded people during the first minutes of the terrorist attack. The militants shot those, who could not walk inside the building or remained lying on the ground of the school yard. Zalina Dzandzarova also said that two suicide bombers had killed themselves on Wednesday - they exploded themselves in the corridor, where male hostages were being kept.

All men, who attempted to show resistance to the terrorists (about 20 men) were killed too. At first the terrorists allowed to bring some water to the hostages from the shower room. However, they were later irritated with the fact that North Ossetian and Ingushetian leaders were not intended to negotiate, and the terrorists did not allow to give water to anyone after that, not even to children.

According to the Gazeta newspaper, the school in Beslan counts 890 pupils and 59 teachers. Children's parents and relatives attended the morning holiday on September 1, when the terrorists attacked the school. Therefore, the number of hostages may triple the officially published figure of 354 people, the Gazeta wrote.

The released hostages, the newspaper wrote, were forbidden to talk to reporters. The terrorists said they would start killing the hostages otherwise.

By MIKE ECKEL
Associated Press Writer
BESLAN, Russia (AP) — Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia where hundreds of hostages had been held for three days, sending hostage-takers and their captives fleeing in a scene of chaos amid explosions and gunfire. More than 100 children were wounded in the assault, some running from the building naked and covered in blood.
Russian authorities claimed to have control of the school, and all the hundreds of hostages were evacuated from the gymnasium where militants — thought to be Chechen separatists — had put them, the Interfax news agency said. But gunfire rang out some two hours after the commandos went into the building, and a number of militants were reported to have escaped.
Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of four children and a woman, and the ITAR-Tass news agency said five militants were killed in the raid.
The ITAR-Tass news agency said at least seven people were killed, but the full extent of casualties was not immediately known. A nurse spread clean sheets on stretchers, and told AP that Russian officials expected “very many” wounded.
Regional emergency officials said 250 hostages were wounded, including 180 children. The head of a children’s hospital in the regional capital of Vladikavkaz said five of the 68 wounded children brought there were in grave condition. Russian news agencies, citing the Health Ministry, said at least 310 people were wounded.
Around a dozen hostage-takers escaped and took refuge in a home nearby — perhaps taking hostages with them, news reports said. Tank fire was heard from the area of the house, the Interfax news agency said.
The chaos erupted on the third day of the hostage standoff in Beslan, a town of 30,000 in North Ossetia, a republic near the wartorn region of Chechnya. An Associated Press reporter heard gunfire throughout the town, and two columns of smoke rose from the school. Four armed men in civilian clothes ran from school, and asked if they were looking for someone, one answered, “A militant ran this way.”
Soldiers and men in civilian clothes carried children — some naked, some clad only in underpants, some covered in blood — to a temporary hospital set up behind an armored personnel carrier. One child had a bandage on her head, others had bandaged limbs. Some women, newly freed from the school, fainted.
The children drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety. Many of the children were only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium where they had been held since the militants took the building on Wednesday. The hostage-takers had refused to let food or water into the school throughout the standoff.
“I am helping you,” a man dressed in camouflage told a crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying “It’s all right. It’s all right.”
It was not immediately clear what led to Friday’s events. Early reports suggested the militants had agreed to let Russia retrieve the bodies of 10 to 20 people who had been killed. Emergency personnel went to get the bodies, and the militants, began setting off bombs and opening fire on people around the school, ITAR-Tass said. Commandos then launched the assault.
The militants had reportedly wired parts of the school with bombs and had threatened to blow it up if security forces moved in. There were conflicting reports of the number of hostages being held at the school. Officials had initially said about 350 — but some freed hostages among a small group freed Thursday put the number at about 1,500.
Friday’s assault came after several explosions boomed from the area and dozens of hostages fled the school. The militants reportedly fired at children who ran from the building, and unconfirmed reports said some of the hostage-takers, possibly including women bearing suicide belts, had fled during the chaos and may have taken hostages with them.
Women escaping the building were seen fainting and others, some covered in blood, were carried away on stretchers. After the escape, commandos assaulted the building.
Interfax said the school’s roof had collapsed — possibly from the explosives some militants had strapped to their bodies. The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the building if authorities tried to storm.
On Thursday, the militants had freed about 26 hostages, all women and children.
Russian officials had negotiated on and off with the militants since shortly after the crisis began, and they said the hostage-takers had repeatedly refused offers of food and water.
“They are very cruel people, we are facing a ruthless enemy,” said Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in the negotiations. “I talked with them many times on my cell phone, but every time I ask to give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request.”
President Vladimir Putin had said that everything possible would be done to end the “horrible” crisis and save the lives of the children.
Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the war-torn region in the past decade prompted forceful Russian rescue operations that led to many deaths. The most recent, the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.

Death to islam....

BESLAN, Russia (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin ordered the borders of North Ossetia closed Saturday as security forces searched the southern region for militants who escaped the Russian storming of a school where they had held hundreds of people hostage, many who fled the building under fire. A news agency reported 322 bodies were pulled from the rubble.

Another 500 or so people remained hospitalized following the bloody and chaotic gunbattle Friday. Many were said to have been killed or wounded when a roof collapsed from an explosion before the Russian assault of the building began.

"All Russia grieves with you," Putin said during a visit to the scene Saturday, carried on government television. "Even alongside the most cruel attacks of the past, this terrorist act occupies a special place because it was aimed at children."

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky as saying 322 bodies, including those of 155 children, had been recovered from the school. It was a stunning figure because Russian officials had said only a day before that there were only 350 hostages - a number that turned out to be at least three times lower than now believed.

Putin said he had ordered North Ossetia's borders closed while officials searched for suspects in the hostage-taking, carried out by militants seeking independence for the nearby republic of Chechnya.

"One of the goals of the terrorists was to sow ethnic enmity and blow up the North Caucasus," Putin said. "Anyone who gives in to such a provocation will be viewed by us as abetting terrorism," he said.

Valery Andreyev, Russia's Federal Security Service chief in the region, said 10 Arabs were among 27 militants killed. The Arab presence among the attackers would support Putin's contention that al-Qaida terrorists were deeply involved in the Chechen conflict, where Muslim fighters have been battling Russian forces on and off for more than a decade.

The Federal Security Service chief in North Ossetia, Valery Andreyev, said more than 30 militants had seized the school. Channel One and NTV television reported that three of them had been captured.
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