Threats to kill child hostages

2004-09-01 15:39

Moscow - The gang who seized at least 120 hostages at a Russian school near Chechnya on Wednesday has threatened to kill 50 children for every one of their group who was killed, a senior local official said.

The gang, which includes women stormed into the school in Beslan in North Ossetia province during a ceremony to mark the first day of the new school year. The gunmen drove up to the school in an armed troop carrier and became involved in a shootout with police. Two people were killed.

Some of the children have been placed in the school windows by the gunmen to stop Russian troops storming the building.

The gang, some strapped with explosives and reported to have mined the school grounds, later set free 15 of the children, Itar-Tass news agency said.

Another 50 who hid from the gunmen escaped from the school before the siege began. Russia is reeling from a series of terror attacks in the last few days.

On Tuesday night a bomb attack in Moscow killed 10 people and injured more than 50.

And last week's near-simultaneous crashes of two Russian airliners, which are being blamed on terrorist, killed 90 people.

Chechen rebels stormed a Moscow theatre in 2002, seizing hundreds of hostages, included women who were heavily wrapped with explosives. Dozens were killed in the rescue effort.

And in 1995, Chechen rebels seized a hospital in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk, taking about 2 000 people hostage.

The six-day standoff ended with a fierce Russian police assault. About 100 people died in the incident.

Meanwhile, it's reported that extra troops have been deployed to guard dozens of nuclear facilities across the country.

Russia, the world's second largest atomic power after the United States, has come under international pressure to do more to protect its Soviet-era nuclear facilities against attack.

- News24