Posted on 09/02/2004 9:52:10 AM PDT by anonymoussierra
After a sleepless night, the panic is beginning to show among the parents and relatives waiting for news from the besieged school in Beslan.
In a nearby building, women who have spent the night crying wander red-eyed past doctors and psychologists, while the men sit clutching enormous cups of coffee.
Sudden bursts of gunfire and the occasional explosion send ripples of fear through the crowd.
The situation remains extremely tense and unpredictable, with the hostage-takers refusing to allow any food into the school, reports the BBC's Sarah Rainsford, who is at the scene.
"I think this firing is just a mind game," Rita Botsayeva told the Reuters news agency. "They are showing us they are alive and well."
Russian authorities have ruled out using force to free the hundreds of schoolchildren, parents and teachers being held hostage by suspected Chechen rebels.
They say the gunshots and blasts are all coming from the rebels, eager to demonstrate they are armed and dangerous.
'Too late for school'
Reports say life in the little town of Beslan has come to a halt, converging around the metal barriers the police are using to keep the public away from the school.
"Being together makes it easier to cope with fear," said a correspondent from a Russian TV station, NTV Mir, reporting on how relatives and friends of those being held in the school spent the night in the nearby Hall of Culture.
Angela Khugayeva, a 26-year-old woman, told Reuters, "We are all relatives. Brothers, cousins or uncles. The whole town feels this."
Those outside look back on how inconsequential events on Wednesday led to loved ones being spared - or ensnared - in the crisis.
"Can you imagine, I have a child who yesterday didn't eat anything and rushed to school, all dressed up. But my daughter was too late for school," a woman called Luda told Reuters, as she waited to hear of her son - a hostage inside the building.
While officials emerging from the police barricade are mobbed for the latest news, reports say the relatives are not talking to the soldiers and security teams poised outside the school - they are keen not to distract them.
Moscow comparisons
The people of Beslan are full of questions - why have they been targeted? By whom? They complain officials are not keeping them informed.
"No one tells us anything," a distraught relative said. "Some people say the terrorists are Chechens. Some people say they are Arabs. But we don't know."
Some of those waiting outside the school are looking back to an earlier hostage crisis in Moscow in 2002, which ended with the deaths of some 120 theatre-goers and rebels.
"We keep comparing this to the theatre siege," a lady told the BBC's Sarah Rainsford.
"But here they're not giving the hostages food. They're just not human," she said.
Thank you. Russia need help, thank you America persons friend.
"At this point, there is almost no act of brutality that Putin and Russia could do in response that I would oppose. Get those children home safely, and then ensure that this can never happen again... by destroying any who would ever consider it."
I want that devil person dead!!!!!!! What devil, evil persons!!!! Atack children, I want that evil terrorist be in hell!!!!!!!!!
Fox just reported that the 7 or 8 people who were killed at the start of this are still laying in front of the school and they cannot get to the bodies to remove them.
Prayers for all the innocents involved in this situation.
=========Here the poseur is a Marine Sgt -- with fair English===========
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1171098/posts?page=16#16
To: TMSuchman
I have been repeating these facts for a long time, but people have been trying to fit me with a tin foil hat. I guess that I am just a nobody, just a retired Sgt. from the Marine Corps and who knows our bad guys when I see them.
I still say that the devil is now on earth and we are in the so called "end times". He [the devil] is either works for or assoicated with the u.n. But the good news is that he looses in the end, & the real BOSS is comming in to go to work!
Amen.
16 posted on 07/14/2004 9:21:56 AM CDT by anonymoussierra (Hello to America)
========================================================
Please know that they are covering this story here in the USA, they do a update on it at least every 30 minutes on 24 hour news TV.
Many Americans are very upset about this and many americans are following the situation closely and are praying for these children and their families.
As I dropped off my daughter at her first day in middle school today, I could not help but wonder what it would be like to have that happen here in the US.
My heart aches for the parents.
My fists clinch in frustration.
As much as I pray for peace, and to love my neighbors--I feel that terror must be met with terror so extreme that no one would want to try this again.
We cannot be sensitive to these animals.
Red
I agree with you. Too many freepers lately seem to have their fingers on the ZOT trigger, and quite frankly, it is disgusting. Do they even bother to read a thread twice over before they post their comments? Do they read the member profiles and assume the worst about their fellow freepers? Do I detect some subtle prejudice against freepers of Eastern European origin? What these quick-draw "freepers" should do is advocate for the United Nations to take control of the Internet, then they can ZOT to their hearts' content!
Regarding the hostage situation in Russia: in Polish, (accent marks don't print well on Free Republic): Swiat sie przewrocil do gory nogami --THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD (TURNED UPSIDE DOWN).
I don't understand why you believe where this anonymous user lives, is relevant to this discussion. Poland, Russia, or posting with a fake Polish accent? Irrelevant to this thread.
Most of the American media will not say that these are likely to be Chechen Muslim terrorists. They call them "armed militants". The media knows if they remind American voters of Islamic terrorism, it will help Pres Bush.
Prayers for safety of the hostages and justice for the terrorists!
And may man and men do what must be done to excise the tumor of is-slime from the world.
The Logic & Sanity blog is still updating...
http://www.logicandsanity.com/archives/2004/09/school_seized_i_1.html#more
He has a link to the list of the hostages released (most of them babies)
He is saying that Russia has agreed to release a number of terrorists, and it looked like they had a deal, but the Islamic terrorists pulled out of it at the last minute.
PRAY HARD! (I'm on the verge of tears here)
I have been repeating these facts for a long time, but people have been trying to fit me with a tin foil hat. I guess that I am just a nobody, just a retired Sgt. from the Marine Corps and who knows our bad guys when I see them.
I still say that the devil is now on earth and we are in the so called "end times". He [the devil] is either works for or assoicated with the u.n. But the good news is that he looses in the end, & the real BOSS is comming in to go to work!
6 posted on 07/14/2004 7:57:59 AM CDT by TMSuchman (God may grant mercy... I'll deliver justice! Shoot first,straight,& often SEMPER FI)
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TXnMA .... this is post 6 from that same thread you just linked. That is not her voice, but the voice of the person she replied to. She simply failed to italicize it for a quote. Relax.
Barbarians are barbarians, always have been, always will be. Just don't let any of them get out alive.
Islamics, savages all...only good thing I can say, and it is not much of for Christian thing, is between Russian soldiers and Ossessians for vengence, many more Chechins will soon be bleeding to the earth then what these kill...Chechins will be extinct as race...probably not a good day to be Chechin anywhere in Russia...I do not see them showing selves to much lately...I wonder why?
Already in Chechnya 70K Russian soldiers, I say air bombard their mountain villages to ground sand...too hard to get tanks to those mountains.
Thank you brother pole. Look, Catholic, Orthodox, Jew, let us now forget this, for we have enemy who is pure evil: Islam. It must be put to the sword or our children will be...and damn them they will not take my icons while I live.
Well, this is becoming more and more evident to me, much to my pain, as I try to be a tolerant person, knowing people locally who profess to be Muslims who are genuinely outraged by this, yet these actions of a great many mean that to me Islam is not only not a religon of peace, but is a crusading warrior fighting faith seeking the forced conversion or annhilation of unbelievers. Not a war for persecution or tyranny, for them it is of annhilation, and we are the targets, in America and Russia, as well as Israel. The Chechens will keep pushing until Russia unleashes her wrath on them, and when it does, when the body counts of Chechens shoot in the seven figures, high high high stacking into the sky, because the Russian people have been handcuffed by the west for too long forced to coddle Chechnya. It should be wiped off the map for all eternity, especially if harm comes to anyone else hostage in that school. I know if I were there and one of my own brood was hurt by them, 100 chechens ears would be worn around my neck by sundown the next day.
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