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Snapshot of developments in Russian hostage crisis
(Reuters)
Updated: 2004-09-03 22:45

These are the key developments on Sept. 3, 2004, the day on which the hostage crisis involving hundreds of children and adults held by an armed gang at a school in Russia's North Ossetia, near rebel Chechnya, came to a bloody end.


NEWS

- Tass says gunmen are still firing from a building in the school compound

- Interfax says more than 10 of the school hostage-takers have been killed in shootouts with Russian troops, gunfire is still heard from other parts of town

- An Interfax correspondent says he saw more than 100 bodies in the school gym, Tass says more than 400 were wounded

- Russian forces had planned more talks, had not planned to assault the school, a senior Russian security official says

- Russian troops assault the school after gang fire on captives trying to escape amid large explosions

- Children in underwear run out from the school, are tended by medics and evacuated to hospitals by ambulances and cars


QUOTES

"We are here being confronted with a deep human tragedy," Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot says.


CHRONOLOGY

Wednesday

- Gunmen seize the hostages at a school in the North Ossetian town of Beslan on Wednesday, first day of school term. Between seven and 16 people are killed.

- Hostage-takers, numbering between 17 and 40, threaten to kill 50 children for every fighter killed.

- Within hours, nearly 50 children manage to escape. Gunmen set free 15 more.

- Putin breaks off his seaside holiday and returns to Moscow.

- Russia sends troops to guard nuclear facilities.

- Representative of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov denies involvement by forces loyal to him.

- UN Security Council demands release of hostages.

Thursday

- Captors free 26 women and children.

- Putin calls off trip to Turkey.



 
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