- Timeline
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- Summer 2004
-
- Chechen militants secure jobs as workmen renovating School
No 1 in Beslan. They conceal weapons - including rocket-propelled grenade
launchers - and explosives under floors and in cavity walls.
-
- Wednesday, September 1
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- 9.00 am: Unknown gunmen seize control of a school, exchange
fire with police. Two to eight people reported killed, more than a dozen
wounded.
-
- 10.50 am: Russian media say the attackers are wearing
suicide bombs.
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- Noon: More gunfire and explosions reported.
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- 4.40pm: At least 12 children and one adult escaped after
hiding in boiler room, authorities say.
-
- 7.30pm: Authorities establish contact with hostage-takers.
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- Thursday, September 2
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- 10.15am (0615 GMT): Cancellation of President Vladimir
Putinís state visit to Turkey is announced.
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- 2pm: Putin calls siege "horrible" and says:
"Our main task is, of course, to save the lives and health of those
who became hostages. All actions of our forces working on the hostages'
release will be devoted and be subject to this task exclusively."
-
- Afternoon: Talks in school gym between hostage-takers
and Ruslan Aushev, Afghan war hero and former president of the neighbouring
Ingushetia region.
-
- 4.45pm: Twenty-six hostages are released - women and
small children - and taken to safety. News media report that one woman
returns to the school to remain with the children still being held captive.
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- Friday, September 3
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- After 1am: Two loud bangs heard. Authorities call it
unprovoked firing by hostage-takers. One policeman reported injured.
-
- After 8am: The number of hostages in the school could
be higher than 1000, officials say.
-
- After 9am: Twenty male hostages were executed inside
the school, local legislator says. Negotiators try to persuade hostage-takers
to allow a delivery of water, food and medicine for captives.
-
- 1.10pm: Militants allow workers from the emergencies
ministry to retrieve bodies of hostages that have lain in front of school
for two days.
-
- Explosions heard, possibly caused by the militants. Hostages
take it as signal to flee. Militants open fire on fleeing hostages; security
forces return fire and lead 30 women and children to safety.
-
- 1.45pm: Militants begin fleeing building. Security forces
pursue them in the town and storm the school building.
-
- 2pm: More hostages freed. Ambulances and cars take hundreds
of wounded to hospitals. Security forces search nearby area for militants.
-
- 2.30pm: Russian commandos blast hole in school wall to
help hostages escape. Five militants reported killed.
-
- 3.17pm: Most hostages reported evacuated.
-
- 3.25 pm: Thirteen escaped militants reportedly holed
up in Beslan home, surrounded by tanks. Intermittent gunfire continues
at school.
-
- 4.30 pm: Regional president says hostage-takers had demanded
Russian troops leave Chechnya - the first clear indication of their demands
and the first direct link between incident and the war in Chechnya.
-
- More than 100 bodies found in the school, most in the
gymnasium, where the roof collapsed in an explosion. Two emergency workers
reported killed, 10 militants reported killed in gunfights. At least 563
people hospitalised, at least 219 of them children, officials say.
-
- 7.15pm: At least three militants still holding some hostages,
including children, inside the school, where troops fight fiercely for
their release, security officials say. Presidential aide says storming
of school was not planned.
-
- 7.25pm: A presidential aide says 10 of the 20 militants
killed were Arab mercenaries. The death toll could rise significantly higher
than 150, officials say.
-
- 7.50pm: A strong explosion is heard from the school building
where hostages had been held, and gunfire continues.
-
- 10.15pm: Crisis centre reports that the militants' resistance
has ended, though four hostage-takers remain at large.
-
- Saturday, September 4
-
- 7.00am President Putin makes a lightning-quick dawn visit
to the grieving city as smoke is still rising from the shattered school.
-
- Anguished parents search handwritten hospital lists as
the death toll continues to rise amid conflicting accounts of how the three-day
seizure of the school erupted.
-
- 10.30am Putin orders a security clampdown in Beslan and
the surrounding region of North Ossetia.
-
- 11.00am In the nearby city of Vladikavkaz, hundreds of
distraught Ossetians queue outside the overwhelmed morgue to look for missing
relatives among the lines of bodies.
-
- 12.00 noon Russia denounces as "blasphemous"
a request by the European Unionís Dutch presidency for an explanation
of the bloody end of the hostage seizure.
-
- 6.00pm In a sombre television address to the nation,
President Putin, dressed in a dark suit and standing beside a Russian flag,
denounces the gunmen who attacked ìdefenceless childrenî.
In the first criticism of the troopsí handling of the siege, Putin
says Russians have a right to demand more from security forces in times
of crisis.
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- Sources: Russian and regional officials, media reports.
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reserved
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