<font color=brown> What a disaster!<font color=black>
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Over 200 die as school siege ends
* 700 injured as troops storm building
* More than 10 hostage-takers killed, 4 still at large
* Officials identify 10 hostage-takers as Arabs
BESLAN: More than 200 people were killed and some 700 were injured on Friday as crack troops stormed a school in southern Russia, freeing children and adults held hostage for almost three days by militants demanding independence for Chechnya.
Scores of screaming, bloodied children, many either naked or wearing nothing but their underwear, fled after an explosion inside the school building forced special forces into an unplanned raid.
The troops exchanged intensive fire with the militants who were believed to be holding as many as 1,200 hostages without food or water, while agonized relations screamed for their loved ones. After hours of chaos and confusion, authorities finally said they had identified the bodies of 79 victims after the siege at the school in North Ossetia, which borders the war-torn republic of Chechnya.
But the top local security official told Channel One television the battle was still continuing in the area. “Unfortunately we have not been able to free all of the hostages yet,” Valery Andreyev said.
Interfax news agency, quoting its correspondent on the scene, said more than 100 corpses of hostages were found in the school gymnasium where they had been herded by the rebels demanding independence for Chechnya.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had vowed the hostages’ safety was his top priority and the security services said the sudden assault on the school had not been planned. Three hostage-takers who had holed up in the school cellar of a school were later “eliminated”, a correspondent for Russia’s Channel One television said.
Security officials added that 10 of the 20 militants killed in the running gunbattles which lasted into the evening were of Arab descent. “There are 10 people originating from the Arab world among 20 killed terrorists,” Interfax news agency quoted regional FSB security service chief Valery Andreyev as saying. Four captors were still at large while eight were killed and three arrested, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
Russian special forces earlier said they were looking for 13 of the gunmen, ITAR-TASS reported, citing the regional Interior Ministry. Neighbouring Ingushetia shut its borders to prevent the fugitives slipping away. Amid total panic and confusion, soldiers were seen carrying the injured, while some of the freed hostages sat numbly or in tears on rows of green canvas stretchers lined up on some grass across the road from the school.
Security service officials said that some 556 local residents and former hostages were taken to hospital. Among them were 332 injured children. Andreyev said the chain of events was triggered when two powerful explosions went off around the school building at around 1:00 pm (0900 GMT).
European and US leaders voiced horror at the loss of life, with the White House calling the hostage-taking “a particularly barbaric act of terrorism”. “The blame for the tragedy lies squarely with the terrorists,” added State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. Figures of the number of hostages had varied since the start of the crisis. “There may have been 1,200 hostages, 70 percent of them children,” Kremlin aide Aslambek Aslakhanov told the Interfax news agency. European leaders called the bloody outcome of the crisis a “deep human tragedy,” but accepted the “dilemma” facing the Russian authorities. Chechen separatist spokesman Akhmed Zakayev said the militants were not Chechens. “The hostage takers were Ingush, Ossetians, Russians, but not Chechens,” said Zakayev, once a spokesman for Chechnya’s separatist president Aslan Maskhadov.
“But of course, their demands have all to do with Chechnya, so whatever has happened, the Chechens will be held responsible. That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said on Britain’s Channel 4 television. agencies.
dailytimes.com.pk |
