BBC News: Battle erupts at Russian school (Photo,maps)

Heavy gunfire and explosions have engulfed the school in North Ossetia, where hundreds of children and adults are being held hostage. A large number of people have been seen fleeing the premises, many of them covered in blood.

The hostage takers apparently tried to escape the school building together with some of the hostages as soldiers fired on them.

Parts of the school are reported to have been blown up, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reported, and a section of the roof appears to have collapsed.

People could be seen running from the building - some of them semi-naked - as a thick pall of black smoke hovered overhead.

There is pandemonium in the streets surrounding the school, says the BBC's Damian Grammaticas, who is also at the scene.

The armed group which is holding the hostages were earlier reported to have demanded independence for neighbouring Chechnya.

On Thursday, 26 women and young children were released, and some of them provided the first details of conditions inside the school.

"You know there are not 300 people in there, but altogether 1,500. People are lying on top of each other," 27-year-old teacher Zalina Dzandarova told the Kommersant newspaper.

RECENT DEADLY ATTACKS
-31 Aug 2004 - Suicide bomb kills 10 at north Moscow train station
-24 Aug 2004 - Two planes crash after leaving same Moscow airport, killing 89
-May 2004 - Chechen president killed in blast at stadium in Grozny
-Feb 2004 - Bomb attack kills at least 39 people on Moscow underground
-Dec 2003 - Female suicide bomber kills five near Moscow's Red Square

"They took some of the injured out of the gym and finished them off right there in the corridor," she said.

Officials put the number of hostages at 354 before Thursday's release, although the school has more than 1,000 pupils.

The hostage takers had been refusing to allow food, water and medicine into the building.

Trip wires were believed to have been laid around the school, with the attackers threatening to blow it up if it was stormed by police.

Hundreds of relatives of those being held inside the school who had been waiting anxiously outside the security cordon reacted in panic to the outbreak of fighting.

Officials said the release of the 26 people on Thursday came after mediation efforts by the former President of the neighbouring region of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev.

The attackers - both men and women, some wearing bomb belts - struck on Wednesday, the first day of the new school year in Russia.

Many parents and other relatives were inside the school, helping their children celebrate the new year, when the assault began.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that everything would be done to save the lives of the hostages.

In his first public comments on the crisis, more than 24 hours after it began, President Putin said: "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."

The school crisis came a day after a suspected suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10 people. Last week, the mid-air explosions of two passenger planes left 89 dead.

1 - Main entrance
2 - Area where gunfire began
3 - Hostages are being held in the school gym, which has reportedly been packed with explosives and mines
4 - Side entrance
5 - There have been reports of children being used as human shields at the back windows
6 - As the attack began a number of people hid in the boiler room and later escaped

Ossetia[osE´shu, Rus. usye´tEu] Pronunciation Key or Alania[AlAn´yA] Pronunciation Key, region of the central Caucasus, divided between the Republic of Georgia and Russia.
On the northern slope is North Ossetia-Alania (1990 est. pop. 641,000), 3,100 sq mi (8,029 sq km), a constituent republic of the Russian Republic; Vladikavkaz (formerly Ordzhonikidze) is the capital. This region extends north beyond the Terek River.
On the southern slope is South Ossetia (1990 est. pop. 100,000), 1,500 sq mi (3,885 sq km), an autonomous region in Georgia; Tskhinvali is its capital. The region extends southward almost to the Kura River.

Both sections of Ossetia have valleys that produce fruit, wine, grain, and cotton. Lumbering and livestock raising are important in the mountains.
North Ossetia-Alania has lead, silver, zinc, and boron deposits and nonferrous metallurgical, oil-extracting, and food-processing industries. Ossetian artwork includes wood, stone, and silver carving.

The Ossetians, an Iranian-speaking people, are mainly Sunni Muslims in the north and Eastern Orthodox Christians in the south, where Georgian culture prevails. They are descended from the medieval Alans (see Sarmatia).
During the 17th cent. the Northern Ossetians were subject to Karbada princelings. From the 18th cent. they came under strong Russian influence, and between 1801 and 1806 all of Ossetian territory was annexed to Russia.

In Mar., 1918, the entire area was declared an autonomous soviet republic, and in Jan., 1920, was renamed the Mountain Autonomous Republic.
In 1922, South Ossetia was made part of Georgia; in 1924 North Ossetia-Alania (then called North Ossetia) became an autonomous region in the RSFSR.
In 1936, North Ossetia was made an autonomous republic. North Ossetia-Alania was a signatory to the Mar. 31, 1992, treaty that created the Russian Federation (see Russia).
In late 1992, Ingush inhabitants of the Prigorodny region of North Ossetia-Alania, which militants desired to incorporate into newly established Ingushetia, were expelled to the neighboring republic.

South Ossetia lost its autonomous region status by an act of the Georgian Supreme Soviet in 1990.
Following Georgia's independence from the Soviet Union, Ossetian nationalists in South Ossetia demanded either independence from Georgia or incorporation into the North Ossetia-Alania.
In Apr., 1992, the South Ossetian Autonomous Region was reestablished in Georgia. Fighting in the region between Georgian and Ossetian forces was ended by a truce in July, which left South Ossetia under the control of the Ossetians; further accords were signed in 1996.

http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/O/Ossetia.html

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