At 09:30 local time on September 1, a Chechen terrorist group of approximately thirty-two armed attackers arrived at a school in Beslan Russia, wearing black ski masks and in some cases wearing explosive belts. At first, some mistook the attackers for Russian forces practicing a security drill. However, the attackers soon demonstrated that they were serious and started to shoot in the air and forced everybody into the school. During the initial chaos, about fifty people managed to flee to safety and alert authorities.
The attackers herded the hostages into the school gymnasium, and stripped the hostages of any means of outside communication. One of the female terrorists threatened the hostages that if she found a single mobile phone on anyone, that person and three more people near him or her would be killed. Immediately after having gathered all the hostages in the gym, the attackers set about killing about twenty of the adult male hostages, reportedly the strongest in the group.The attackers forced other hostages to throw their bodies out of the building and set some children to wash the blood off the floor.
The attackers mined the gymnasium and the rest of the building with improvised explosive devices, and surrounded it with tripwires . In a further bid to deter rescue attempts, they threatened to kill fifty hostages for every one of their own members killed by the police, and to kill twenty hostages for every gunman injured. They also threatened to blow up the school if government forces attacked.
The Russian government initially said that it would not use force to rescue the hostages, and negotiations towards a peaceful resolution took place on the first and second days, led by Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician whom the hostage takers had reportedly asked for by name; for Roshal had helped negotiate the release of children in the 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege.
Nearly 30 hours into the siege, survivors say the terrorists were popping pills to stay awake, and they were starting to crack.
Day 2
On September 2, 2004, negotiations between Roshal and the hostage-takers proved unsuccessful, and they refused to allow food, water, and medicines to be taken in for the hostages or for the bodies of the dead to be removed from in front of the school.
On day two,many of the young children started to succumb to being denied food and water and being forced to stand up for long periods in the tightly packed and hot gym. Many fainted and the parents feared they would start to die. Occasionally, the terrorists took out some of the unconscious children, and poured water on their heads before returning them to the gym. Reportedly, some resorted to drinking their own urine and extracting water from plants. Later in the day, women and men also started to faint from fatigue and thirst. When the bombs started to go off, many of the surviving children were so fatigued they were barely able to flee from the carnage.
In the afternoon, the gunmen agreed to release 26 nursing women and their infants following their negotiations with former Ingushetia President Ruslan Aushev, to whom they also handed a nursing infant whose mother refused to leave the school because of her other children. About a dozen of those mothers released were allowed by the terrorists to take only one child and forced to leave behind other children (a number of which were killed).
At around 15:30, two rocket propelled grenade (RPGs) were fired by the hostage-takers at security forces outside the school, approximately ten minutes apart;[16] one set a police car ablaze. As the day and night wore on, the combination of stress and sleep deprivation—and possibly drug withdrawal made the terrorists increasingly hysterical and unpredictable. The crying of the children irritated them, and on several occasions children and their mothers were threatened that if they didn't stop crying they'd be shot.
Day 3
Around 13:04 on September 3, 2004, the hostage-takers agreed to allow Emergency Ministry servicemen to remove bodies from the school grounds. However, when the servicemen approached the school, the hostage-takers opened fire, and explosions were heard from the gymnasium. Two of the servicemen were killed, while the rest took cover. Part of the gymnasium wall was demolished by the explosions, allowing a group of about thirty hostages to escape, though a number were killed when the hostage-takers fired at them and as a result of crossfire from the hostage-takers and army.
It was at this point that Russian Special Forces fired the Shmel RPO flamethrowers at the school's roof; a total of nine empty disposable tubes were later found on the rooftops of the nearby apartment blocks. A chaotic battle broke out as the Special Forces sought to enter the school and cover the escape of the hostages. The task force members blew further holes in walls to allow hostages to escape.
In addition to the Special Forces, army and Interior Ministry troops engaged, there were Mi-24 Hind and Mi-8 Hip gunships, and at least one tank , as well as several BTR armoured personnel carriers.
Many local civilians also joined in the battle, having brought along their own weapons. Afterwards, the Russian government defended the use of tanks and other heavy weaponry, arguing that it was used after surviving hostages escaped from the school. However, this contradicts the eyewitness accounts, as many hostages were seriously wounded and could not possibly escape by themselves.
The attack was followed by two or more large explosions, totally destroying the gym and setting much of the building on fire.
By 15:00, two hours after the assault began, Russian troops claimed control of most of the school. However, fighting was still continuing in the grounds as evening fell, and three hostage-takers were still located in the basement along with a number of hostages. They were eventually killed, along with the hostages they were holding.
An estimated 344 civilians, mostly hostages, were killed during the crisis; at least 19 Russian servicemen were killed as well, including eleven OSNAZ fighters.
Shortly after September 3, 2004, Russian official sources stated that the attackers were part of an international group led by Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev and included a number of Arabs with contact to al-Qaeda.
“Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn”
-Robert Bruns
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