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Website statement blames Chechen rebels
Toll rises beyond 300, Putin visits townMore than 340 people were killed in a southern Russian school that had been seized by militants, a prosecutor said Saturday, and President Vladimir Putin accused the attackers of trying to spark an ethnic conflict that would engulf Russia's troubled Caucasus Mountains region. Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky told reporters that 322 victims, including 155 children, had been killed during the crisis in Beslan, and that all 26 attackers had been eliminated. That raised the death toll well beyond the 250 officials had previously cited. Medical officials said more than 542 people including 336 children had been hospitalised as a result of the crisis, which ended in a wave of violence Friday. Commandos stormed the school and battled militants as crying children, some naked and covered with blood, managed to flee through explosions and gunfire after three days during which the hostage takers herded them into the gym, denied them food and water and threatened to kill them. Putin flew to Beslan before dawn on Saturday, as smoke was still rising from the shattered school. "Even alongside the most cruel attacks of the past, this terrorist act occupies a special place because it was aimed at children," he said during a meeting with regional officials, which was broadcast on Russian television. Posted by: tipper 2004-09-04 |
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