School Siege in Russia on Sept 3 - 6, 2004

2004 September 3rd - Russia, North Ossetia, town of Beslan: around 9:00 a.m. Russian troops stormed the school in which 20 Chechen terrorists had taken up to 1,200 people hostage, many of them children; the attackers - both men and women, some wearing bomb belts - struck on Wednesday, September 1, the first day of the new school year in Russia. They demanded independence for the troubled region of Chechnya, where Russian forces have been involved in a bloody conflict with separatists for several years; at least 150 people died and more than 640 were injured.