School Siege
Ends In Carnage
By Richard Ayton
and Oliver Bullough
04 September, 2004
Reuters
BESLAN, Russia
- Russian troops stormed a school on Friday, blaming Chechen hostage-takers
for a bloody battle in which more than 200 people -- dozens of them
children -- were killed and hundreds were wounded.
Terrified children,
some naked and others with bloodied faces, ran screaming for safety
after a 53-hour ordeal at the hands of gunmen with bombs strapped to
their waists. Machinegun fire rattled out and helicopters clattered
overhead.
The Russian military
was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency late on Friday as saying all resistance
had been quelled at the school but it was still hunting for three gunmen.
Amid the chaos, a top official said some children were still being held.
Burly soldiers grabbed
the fleeing children and rushed them to waiting medics. Some had blood
streaming from wounds.
"I smashed
the window to get out," one boy with a bandaged hand told Russian
television. "People were running in all directions ... (The guerrillas)
were shooting from the roof."
The children, many
stripped to their underwear after two days without food or drink in
stiflingly hot and crowded conditions, gulped down bottles of water
and waited in a daze for relatives as gunfire crackled round them.
CONFUSION AND
CARNAGE
Official details
and figures fluctuated amid the confusion and carnage in Beslan in the
North Ossetia region bordering troubled Chechnya, where Moscow has faced
a decade-old revolt.
"More than
200 people died as a result of shooting by the gunmen or from wounds
received as a result of explosions set off by the gunmen," a Health
Ministry source in North Ossetia was quoted as saying by the Interfax
news agency.
Russian media said
860 pupils attended Middle School No.1. Their number may have been swollen
to around 1,500 by parents and relatives attending a first-day ceremony
traditional in Russian schools.
The Emergencies
Ministry said 704 people, including 259 children, were in hospital.
Many of the wounded were being treated in mobile hospitals set up by
authorities.
Bullet holes riddled
the red brick walls of the school and smoke rose from the collapsed roof
of the gymnasium.
Six bodies lay covered with white sheets near the school gates, one the
almost naked corpse of a girl of around 16.
Russian authorities
said they had been forced into an unplanned rescue operation when the
hostage-takers opened fire on fleeing children.
Moments before the
battle erupted, officials said they had sent a vehicle to fetch the
bodies of people killed in Wednesday's seizure of the school.
"No military
action was planned. We were planning further talks," said Valery
Andreyev, regional head of Russia's FSB security service.
RUSSIA SAYS 10
ARABS KILLED
Andreyev said 10
Arabs had been among about 20 gunmen killed, adding fuel to Russia's
contention that Chechen rebels are backed by foreign Islamic militants.
Some officials suggested
an al Qaeda financing link to the gunmen.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin 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.
A total of 129 hostages
and 41 rebels were killed when Putin sent in troops to overpower Chechen
rebels who seized a Moscow theater in 2002. But violence in the region
and elsewhere in Russia has raged on.
World leaders sent
messages of support and sympathy to Russia, although many have questioned
Moscow's human rights record in an often bloody campaign against Chechen
rebels seeking independence for their region.
"This is yet
another grim reminder of the lengths to which terrorists will go to
threaten the civilized world," President Bush told a rally in West
Allis, Wisconsin, where he was campaigning for re-election.
GUNMEN SPLIT UP
Russian media said
the fleeing gunmen split up after escaping from the school.
Tass quoted the
Russian military as saying three of the gunmen had been captured.
Alexander Dzasokhov,
president of North Ossetia, said the gunmen had demanded an independent
Chechnya, the first clear link between them and a decade-long separatist
rebellion in the neighboring province.
Attacks linked to
Chechen separatists have surged in the past few weeks 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.