Beslan School Incident (Russia)
The Republic of North Ossetia in Russia
On September 1, 2004, the morning of the first day of school, a group of around thirty armed men and women, arriving in a van and a military vehicle, stormed Beslan's Middle School. The students aged ranged from seven to eighteen years old. Most of the attackers wore black ski masks and a few were seen carrying explosive belts. After an exchange of gunfire with police, in which five officers and one perpetrator were killed, the attackers seized the school building taking more than 1,300 hostages.
Chechen separatists had stormed the school, two days later they released 26 hostages. But, they refused to allow food or water supplies into the school, which was surrounded by special forces. 344 civilians were killed, 186 of them children, and hundreds were wounded. The Chechen hostage crisis lasted 52-hours.
