Russian military storm school

quarryman

from bbc:

Bloody end to Russia school siege
Girl being carried out of Russian school siege
It is not clear how many hostages are free
Russian troops have stormed the school in North Ossetia, where hundreds of children and adults have been held hostage since Wednesday.

A Russian commander says Russian troops are nearly in full control, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg.

But sporadic gunfire can still be heard and the fate of many of the children held by the gunmen is unclear.

Reuters reports that several of the hostage takers were shot dead by troops as they tried to escape.

A large number of people have been seen fleeing the premises, many of them covered in blood.


LATEST EVENTS
0958: Special forces reported to have entered school
0953: Another explosion heard
0930: School roof said to have collapsed
0914: Group of about 30 hostages escape from school
0905: Explosions and gunfire heard. Soldiers run towards building
All times GMT

At a glance: School siege

Helicopters hovered overhead and there were troops everywhere.

Parts of the school are reported to have been blown up, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports, and a section of the roof appears to have collapsed.

She said a man inside the building had told her that an explosion had been heard inside the school and that as a result a wall had collapsed followed by gunfire. Many more explosions were heard after that.

It is believed there may be many more people left inside the building.

Pandemonium

People could be seen running from the building - some of them semi-naked - as a thick pall of black smoke hovered overhead.

Click below for a detailed map of Beslan

Enlarge Map
There is pandemonium in the streets surrounding the school, says the BBC's Damian Grammaticas, who is also at the scene.

The armed group which is holding the hostages were earlier reported to have demanded independence for neighbouring Chechnya.

On Thursday, 26 women and young children were released, and some of them provided the first details of conditions inside the school.

"You know there are not 300 people in there, but altogether 1,500. People are lying on top of each other," 27-year-old teacher Zalina Dzandarova told the Kommersant newspaper.

"They took some of the injured out of the gym and finished them off right there in the corridor," she said.

Officials put the number of hostages at 354 before Thursday's release, although the school has more than 1,000 pupils.

The hostage takers had been refusing to allow food, water and medicine into the building.

Trip wires were believed to have been laid around the school, with the attackers threatening to blow it up if it was stormed by police.

Hundreds of relatives of those being held inside the school who had been waiting anxiously outside the security cordon reacted in panic to the outbreak of fighting.

Click here to see where the hostages are being held

Officials said the release of the 26 people on Thursday came after mediation efforts by the former President of the neighbouring region of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev.

First school day

The attackers - both men and women, some wearing bomb belts - struck on Wednesday, the first day of the new school year in Russia.

Many parents and other relatives were inside the school, helping their children celebrate the new year, when the assault began.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that everything would be done to save the lives of the hostages.

In his first public comments on the crisis, more than 24 hours after it began, President Putin said: "Our main task is, of course, to save the lives and health of those who became hostages.

"All actions of our forces working on the hostages' release will be devoted and be subject to this task exclusively."

The school crisis came a day after a suspected suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10 people. Last week, the mid-air explosions of two passenger planes left 89 dead.

flogen

It seems as though it started when soldiers moved in to collect the bodies of the people killed early on in the week (which was agreed between the two). An explosion went off and that led to the storming, also some hostages tried to escape, and the hostage takers opened fire on them.

Getting blanket coverage, BBC, UTV, SKY and even TV3 are all disrupting normal programmes to cover it. Of course, this story isn't big enough for RTE to cover.

flogen

Sleipnir

aw crap. I really hope the kids are okay.

flogen

Sleipnir wrote:

aw crap. I really hope the kids are okay.

reports suggest that the majority of the children are safe, but naturally its so chaotic at the moment, its hard to know for sure.

flogen

Ciaran500

The latest is that all the hostages have been freed.

There are at least 400 injured. 219 of them children. 17 children dead

100 bodies in the gym where the roof collapsed.

10 captors killed. About 13 escaped

3 militants are held up in the basement of the school.

mike65

Rather than discuss the events its the coverage thats interesting. RTE as usual, is at the beach while on other channels, radio and tv its nearly as chaotic as it is on the ground.

Sometimes I wish someone would say "enough" and take a deep breath. I was listening to fivelive at about 10.30am and the presenter said "Its plainly to early to talk about the political consequences but we must really...so (to expert x) what will the fallout be for Mr Putin?"

Agh! :mad:

Mike.

ps the best coverage I've sen so far has been on BBC World where they
have a more considered approach and also have access to genuine experts.

flogen

mike65 wrote:

Rather than discuss the events its the coverage thats interesting. RTE as usual, is at the beach while on other channels, radio and tv its nearly as chaotic as it is on the ground.

Sometimes I wish someone would say "enough" and take a deep breath. I was listening to fivelive at about 10.30am and the presenter said "Its plainly to early to talk about the political consequences but we must really...so (to expert x) what will the fallout be for Mr Putin?"

Agh! :mad:

Mike.

ps the best coverage I've sen so far has been on BBC World where they
have a more considered approach and also have access to genuine experts.

well, out of the limited choice I had this morning, BBC News 24 (which BBC 1 had cut to) was miles ahead of the rest. Sky were showing some crap footage, while BBC and even ITV were right in the thick of it, Sky had some ex-SAS rejects who were really jumped up yobs whom obviously had no solid knowledge of the situation other than it being a hostage one, while BBC had 2 or so reporters right beside the school, as well as Russian politicians and military experts who knew their stuff.
ITV were ok, but I didnt stay that long to get a good idea of their coverage.
RTE were nice enough to give it a few minutes on the 1 o clock bullitten.
What I find interesting is that they can now be fairly compared to The Sun, as that seemed to be the only paper in the newsagents which didn't have front page coverage of the incidents.

flogen

byte

Yes I agree that BBC News 24 had excellent coverage. Much better than Sky News and any of the rest.

mike65

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3627060.stm

and bbc website users reaction

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3624494.stm

Mike.

stormboy

People who shoot children and strap bombs to themselves should be simply handcuffed and cremated alive. We don't need these kind of simpleton scum in our world as we already have enough pests and diseases !

simu

stormboy wrote:

People who shoot children and strap bombs to themselves should be simply handcuffed and cremated alive. We don't need these kind of simpleton scum in our world as we already have enough pests and diseases !

And people who handcuff and cremate people who shoot children ought to have their own children shot.

And then people who shoot the children of people who handcuff and cremate people who shoot children ought to be handcuffed and cremated.

And then again people who handcuff and cremate people who shoot children of people who handcuff and cremate people who shoot children ought to have their children shot.

etc

monument

Was over in London last week - the Guardian had the front page from at least Thursday to Saturday devoted to it - not the nicest think to look at nearly first thing in the morning – but highlighting this **** is good. ITV

I suppose the real cringe point in this story is it was children, a lot of whom were only starting school. My thoughts would have to be with the families, however even at such a time one has to remember how badly Chechnya has been treated - what could drive people to such sicking actions?.

Found this interesting comment piece from the New Zealand Herald…

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3589277&thesection=news&thesubsection=dialogue