Armed men seize Russian school

[Bill Sikes]

From the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)

>Armed men seize Russian school
>(Filed: 01/09/2004)

>Up to 400 hostages, including 200 schoolchildren, are being held by armed men >who have seized a school in the Russian region of North Ossetia.

>At least three people were killed and 11 injured when the school in the city of >Beslan was first attacked. Nearly 50 children are thought to have escaped from >the building.

>As many as 17 heavily armed men and women stormed the school and have >threatened to blow up the building if police try to take it by force.

>Vladimir Yakovlev, President Vladimir Putin's envoy for the southern region of >Russia that includes North Ossetia, said: "It is not immediately clear how many
>schoolchildren and parents have been taken.
>"There is a shoot-out in the area."


Sounds as though there will be a repeat performance of the theatre job.

[capt_buzzard]

That bomb yesterday in Moscow city centre killed 10 people and news coming in says at least 60 people including children were wounded. A female bomber is believed to have blew herself up in a car outside a shopping centre,close to a Moscow subway station.

[Bill Sikes]

Originally Posted by capt_buzzard

That bomb yesterday in Moscow city centre killed 10 people and news coming in says at least 60 people including children were wounded. A female bomber is believed to have blew herself up in a car outside a shopping centre,close to a Moscow subway station.

The situation re. the school hstages seems to be getting worse and worse.

[Peg]

I hate knowing there are children out there having to wonder if they will live or die. The horror, fear, and worry their parents must be going through is unimaginable.

[Warsai]

BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 2 -- Parents and teachers of hundreds of child hostages at a school in southern Russia settled in anxiously Thursday for a lengthy siege following a long night in which guerrillas holding the school rejected proposals for resolving the standoff and refused to see negotiators for further talks.

The children, who slept the night on the gym floor, have had water but no food in 24 hours and the guerrillas have refused permission to allow food to be brought in.

Outside School No. 1 in this small town in North Ossetia, Russian troops dodged occasional gunfire and rockets launched from the building while angry relatives holding vigil outside harangued government officials with hostile questions. At least one of the explosions destroyed a car parked several dozens yards from the school. It was still burning an hour later.

Early Thursday morning, as a heavy mist settled around the school, Lt. Gen. Kazbek Dzantiyev tried to placate them by saying, "We're not going to hide anything from you."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Sep2.html

This is just horrible. They won't even allow food for the children. The children and parents must be scared out of their minds.