BESLAN,
Russia (CNN) -- Hundreds of people held hostage at a school
in southern Russia fled to safety Friday, but scores are
reported dead as pitched battles continue between troops
and hostage-takers.
Reports said the hostages may have numbered
as many as 1,200 and that 70 percent of them were children.
It was not clear whether several children
and others, who were being held by a remnant of the hostage-taker
hours after the school was stormed, were still in captivity.
Valery
Andreyev, head of the local branch of the FSB intelligence
service, said 20 hostage-takers had been killed, 10 of
them from Arab countries, after Russian troops stormed
the school earlier Friday.
Until now, the rebels have been regarded
as residents of the restive republic of Chechnya or other
Caucasus areas.
Many fatalities have been reported. Around
100 people have been seen dead in the school gym by journalists.
There also was a report that 23 bodies,
including 17 children, were outside a hospital morgue
and 10 more bodies were inside. One news report said the
death toll could exceed 200.
Near the scene, news footage showed dead
bodies of children on stretchers.
One woman leaned down to a young boy,
hugging and caressing the youth, who shared a stretcher
with another body. Other women stood shocked, holding
their hands to their mouths and weeping.
Andreyev
said 400 people had been freed in the storming operation,
with many of them wounded. Earlier, scores of survivors
ran from the school and people were being carried on stretchers
to ambulances.
Special forces were mopping up pockets
of rebel resistance at the school, clearing the burned-out
building of wounded hostages and hunting down the hostage-takers
who fled after special forces stormed the site.
Russian forces say they are in control
of the school building, but the gunfire continued into
the late afternoon and there were reports of militants
firing from another structure in the school compound.
Hostage-takers have grenade launchers,
small arms and have been sniping, and troops and the abductors
have been fighting pitched battles.
The
hostage incident began two days ago when an armed gang
of Chechen rebels took hundreds of children, parents and
teachers hostage on the first day of school in Beslan,
located in North Ossetia, near Chechnya, where rebels
have been fighting Russia and demanding independence for
that small republic.
The storming was not planned, Russia said.
A local official from Russia's FSB intelligence
service told Russian media the troops had been ready for
a long siege.
However, the forces stormed the building
around midday after Russian officials, under a cease-fire
agreement with militants, tried to collect bodies lying
outside the building.
There
was an explosion, hostages fled, and hostage-takers opened
fire on the children and rescue workers. One of the workers
was killed and another was wounded.
Russian troops then opened fire at the
rebels, and the battle began.
Several hours later the scene remained
in chaos, with pockets of resistance remaining and machine-gun
fire heard on the scene and troops going room-by-room
as the wounded were being taken out of the building.
It is thought that the people in the gym
might have died when explosives triggered the collapse
of the roof and a fire.
Russian forces blasted holes in a building
of the school to create exit points. A Russian soldier
was hit by a bullet, and a news cameraman was hit.
The explosions heard at the scene could
have resulted from mines and booby-traps planted near
the school by militants, one report said.
Interfax
quoted a Defense official as saying that "the terrorists
planted a lot of mines and booby-traps filled with metal
bolts in the gym" where hostages were held.
Officials said the hostage-takers had
been holding more than 350 children, parents and teachers.
Relatives said the number was much higher -- about 1,000.
Children who survived said they were denied
food and water and had to take off their clothes because
of heat. Some boys said that because they lacked liquids,
they had to drink their own urine.
The standoff followed a bloody week in
Russia, in which a female suicide bomber Tuesday killed
nine people outside a Moscow subway station and two airliners
were downed by two suspected Chechen female suicide bombers
on August 24, killing all 89 people aboard the planes.
Russian officials have said the new wave
of attacks is an attempt at revenge for last weekend's
elections in Chechnya in which a Kremlin-backed candidate
won the presidency.
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