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Dozens killed as shootout ends Russian school siege
Dozens were killed when Russian troops stormed a school Friday in a chaotic battle to free hundreds of parents, teachers and children who had been held hostage for 53 hours by Chechen separatists.
Naked children ran for safety, screaming amid machinegun fire and explosions while attack helicopters clattered overhead.
Julian Manyon, a reporter for Britain's ITV television news, said his cameraman had seen up to 100 bodies in the gymnasium of the school in Beslan, in the North Ossetia region adjoining Chechnya, after the hostage-takers left:
"Our cameraman ... told me that in his estimation there are as many as 100 dead bodies, I am afraid, lying on the smoldering floor of the gymnasium where we know that a large number of the hostages were being held."
The Tass news agency said there more than 400 wounded. Russian news agencies said at least seven people had been dead on arrival at hospital. Rebels fled with soldiers in pursuit.
In the chaotic hours after the battle began, half- or fully naked children gulped from bottles of water after two days without food or drink in a stiflingly hot and crowded school.
"I smashed the window to get out," one young boy with a bandaged hand told Russian television. "People were running in all directions ... They (the rebels) shot from the roof."
It was unclear what had triggered the battle, shortly after Russia insisted it would not resort to force.
The prolonged fighting and scenes of chaos suggested that, if Russian forces had planned to storm the building, their hand had been forced before they were ready.
CONSEQUENCES
The outcome of the siege may have repercussions for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who came to power in 2000 on a promise to restore order in Chechnya after years of violent rebellion and hostage-takings similar to the one in Beslan.
Over 129 hostages and 41 rebels died when Putin sent troops to overpower Chechen rebels who had seized a Moscow theater in 2002. But the violence in the region and elsewhere in Russia has continued.
Tass said troops had blown a hole in a wall of the school to let hostages escape. It also said soldiers were battling gunmen who had fled to the house in the south of the town.
Interfax said some of the hostage-takers, believed to number about 40, had tried to break out through crowds of frantic relatives waiting near the school as special forces moved in.
NTV television said five hostage-takers had been killed.
Officials had said some 500 people were being held in the school in North Ossetia, near Chechnya, but released hostages said the number could be nearer to 1,500 people lying on top of one another in increasingly desperate conditions.
The clashes appeared to have begun shortly after authorities said they had sent a vehicle to the school to fetch bodies. Various reports said this had been followed by a break-out attempt by either hostages or rebels.
Alexander Dzasokhov, president of the province of North Ossetia, said earlier the masked gunmen had demanded an independent Chechnya, the first clear link between them and the decade-long separatist rebellion in the neighboring province. One unidentified woman freed Thursday told Izvestia that during the night children occasionally began to cry: "Then the fighters would fire in the air to restore quiet. In the morning they told us they would not give us anything more to drink because the authorities were not ready to negotiate." WAVE OF ATTACKS Attacks linked to Chechen separatists have surged this month as Chechnya elected a head for its pro-Moscow administration to replace an assassinated predecessor. Last week, suicide bombers were blamed for the near-simultaneous crash of two passenger planes in which 90 people died. This week, in central Moscow, a suicide bomber blew herself up, killing nine people. Russian media have speculated that the gunmen could belong to separatist forces under Magomed Yevloyev, an Ingush who is believed to have led a mass assault on Ingushetia in June. A representative of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in London repeated denials of involvement by forces loyal to him and condemned the hostage-takers, saying: "This is a monstrous act ... There is no way to justify what they have done," Akhmed Zakayev told Channel 4 news. Izvestia said 860 pupils attended School No. 1. But the number of people on the campus would have been swollen by parents and relatives attending the first-day ceremony traditional in Russian schools. Up to 16 people were believed to have been killed in the early stages of the assault. |
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