This Sunday marks 20 years since the Beslan school hostage crisis, an Islamic terrorist attack considered the deadliest school shooting in the world's history... 01.09.2024, Sputnik Africa
The attack on the school happened on September 1, 2004, which is known as "First Bell" or Knowledge Day in Russia as the official beginning of the academic year.The crisis started when a group of armed terrorists took over School Number One in the small town of Beslan, North Ossetia, an autonomous republic in Russia's North Caucasus region. The group that held the hostages was dispatched by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev with the demand that Russia leave and acknowledge Chechnya's independence.The events began to unfold at 9:05 am local time, when a truck covered with an awning drove up to the school building. Armed men emerged from the vehicle, surrounded the ceremonial assembly, and, while shooting from machine guns and beating people with rifle butts, forced hostages to enter the building. Most of the hostages ended up in the gym, which was mined. Several people were shot.On the third day of the standoff, September 3, 2004, the operational headquarters agreed with the terrorists to evacuate the bodies of the dead. When a vehicle with emergency services arrived at the school to collect the bodies, two powerful explosions were heard in the school gym. Russian security forces then stormed the building, which reports indicate was not initially planned.As the shooting began, children and women began jumping out of the windows and through a hole in the wall of the gymnasium. Almost all the men who were in the school had been shot during the first two days.Special forces units, together with armed locals, began rescuing people who were in the gymnasium. At the same time, snipers suppressed the terrorists' firing points, which were targeting the fleeing hostages.After the terrorist attack, School No. 1 was never restored. The building and the surrounding area remained abandoned for seven years until a memorial complex was built around the ruins. A new school building was constructed nearby.Take a look at Sputnik's photo gallery of that dark day, which lives in infamy.
This Sunday marks 20 years since the Beslan school hostage crisis, an Islamic terrorist attack considered the deadliest school shooting in the world's history. Sputnik Africa recalls the events and the victims of the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of modern Russia.
The attack on the school happened on September 1, 2004, which is known as "First Bell" or Knowledge Day in Russia as the official beginning of the academic year.
The crisis started when a group of armed terrorists took over School Number One in the small town of Beslan, North Ossetia, an autonomous republic in Russia's North Caucasus region. The group that held the hostages was dispatched by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev with the demand that Russia leave and acknowledge Chechnya's independence.
The events began to unfold at 9:05 am local time, when a truck covered with an awning drove up to the school building. Armed men emerged from the vehicle, surrounded the ceremonial assembly, and, while shooting from machine guns and beating people with rifle butts, forced hostages to enter the building. Most of the hostages ended up in the gym, which was mined. Several people were shot.
On the third day of the standoff, September 3, 2004, the operational headquarters agreed with the terrorists to evacuate the bodies of the dead. When a vehicle with emergency services arrived at the school to collect the bodies, two powerful explosions were heard in the school gym. Russian security forces then stormed the building, which reports indicate was not initially planned.
As the shooting began, children and women began jumping out of the windows and through a hole in the wall of the gymnasium. Almost all the men who were in the school had been shot during the first two days.
Special forces units, together with armed locals, began rescuing people who were in the gymnasium. At the same time, snipers suppressed the terrorists' firing points, which were targeting the fleeing hostages.
During this ordeal, over 1,100 people—777 of them children—were held captive for three days. A total of 334 people—186 of them children—perished, along with all but one of the attackers.
After the terrorist attack, School No. 1 was never restored. The building and the surrounding area remained abandoned for seven years until a memorial complex was built around the ruins. A new school building was constructed nearby.
Take a look at Sputnik's photo gallery of that dark day, which lives in infamy.
Ossetian women sit waiting for news not far from the school seized by attackers in Beslan, North Ossetia, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004. Attackers wearing suicide-bomb belts seized the Russian school in a region bordering Chechnya on Wednesday, taking hostage about 400 people, half of them reportedly children, and threatening to blow up the building.
Soldiers, rescuers and police seen at the school building seized by militants in Beslan, North Ossetia, Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia where hundreds of hostages had been held for three days, sending hostage-takers and their captives fleeing in a scene of chaos amid explosions and gunfire.
A boy, who wasn't a hostage, looks around a literature classroom in the school seized by terrorists, in Beslan, North Ossetia, Saturday, Sept. 4, 2004.
