Sunday, October 27,
2002
;)
MOSCOW — Moscow's chief doctor
said that all but one of the 117 hostages killed in the
58-hour siege of a Moscow theater died from the knockout gas
Russian special forces used during the rescue.
The
Interfax news agency quoted Andrei Seltsovsky as saying that
one person died from bullet wounds during Saturday's assault.
It was the first time that a Russian official identified the
cause of death of most of the victims.
About 650 of the 750 survivors remain
hospitalized Sunday, with 200 of them in critical
condition.
An anesthesiologist, Yevgeny Yevdokimov,
said the deadly effects of the gas were exacerbated by the
weakened condition of the hostages, who had little food or
water while held captive, the Interfax news agency said.
Fifty of the Chechen rebels who seized the
theater were killed during the Saturday rescue, several with
bullets to the head, apparently as they lay incapacitated from
the gas.
The attackers, 18 of whom were women, had
burst into the theater during a performance, some of them with
explosives strapped to their bodies. They mined the theater
and threatened to blow it up unless Putin withdrew Russian
troops from the rebellious region of Chechnya.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said early
Sunday that a Dutch citizen, Natalja Zjirov, was among those
hostages who died. No other deaths among the 71 foreigners
among the hostages were known.
Some hospitals posted complete or partial
lists Sunday afternoon of those being treated, but information
remained fragmented. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said its workers
were trying to find which hospital one of the two known
American hostages was in.
Anxious hostage relatives waited for word
on their loved ones after the special forces raid on the
theater Saturday killed most of the hostage-takers. The freed
captives were taken to hospitals, most of them suffering from
the effects of the knockout gas that was pumped through the
building before it was stormed by Russian special forces.
Irina Ramtsova waited outside the black
iron gates of City Clinical Hospital No. 13 with pictures of
her father, Fyodor, a trumpet player at the theater seized by
armed Chechen rebels Wednesday.
"We keep calling and calling and there is
no information," she said.
The family last heard from him when he
called on his cell phone during siege and said he was seated
next to one of the bombs the rebels had threatened to
detonate. Official hot lines have been no help, she said.
In the afternoon, a few survivors began
leaving in a cold, light rain. A crowd of frantic relatives
and jostling journalists were part of the chaos. Sirens
blasted from passing emergency vehicles.
The scene was more tranquil at another
hospital, directly across from the raided theater.
Among those let out of that clinic,
Hospital No. 1 for War Veterans, was Georgy Vasilyev, the
producer of Nord-Ost, the musical that was in
progress when the theater was seized.
He recalled the ordeal as a "bardak,"
Russian slang for complete chaos. He said he had tried to talk
to the gunmen, but with little success, except for one of the
female hostage-takers who gave him a prayer written in Arabic,
suggesting that he read it to purify himself before death.
Russian special forces poured the knockout
gas into the theater and moved in around 5:15 a.m.
Saturday.
The gas left many captives unconscious, and
they had to be carried from the theater suffering from
symptoms of poisoning. Authorities have not said what was in
the gas.
The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Deputy
Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev as saying none of the
victims died from gas poisoning.
But reports said the gas caused many
hostages to throw up, fall unconscious and then choke on
their vomit, the New York Times reported. A
Moscow doctor told the newspaper that suffocation was the
cause of death for every hostage death at his hospital.
"The problem was that they couldn't provide
medical assistance right there at the scene," the doctor told
the newspaper. "They had to transport them to the
hospital."
President Vladimir Putin, who visited some
of the injured Saturday, declared Monday a national day of
mourning. As the troops surrounding the theater began to
withdraw, people put flowers around the site.
Besides the 50 assailants the Federal
Security Service said were killed at the theater — several
with bullets to the head, apparently as they lay incapacitated
from the gas — officials said three other gunmen were
captured, and authorities searched the city for accomplices
and gunmen who may have escaped.
The chief Moscow prosecutor, Mikhail
Avdyukov, said Sunday that three people have been arrested in
Moscow on suspicion of helping organize and carry out the
raid, the Interfax news agency reported. The prosecutor's
office could not be reached by telephone for confirmation or
details.
Russian forces pulled out of Chechnya after
a devastating 1994-1996 war that left separatists in charge.
In fall 1999, Putin sent troops back in after rebels based in
Chechnya attacked a neighboring region and after
apartment-building bombings that killed about 300 people were
blamed on the militants.
In 1995 and 1996, rebels seized hundreds of
hostages in two raids in southern Russia near Chechnya, and
dozens of people died in both cases, many of them killed when
Russian forces attacked the assailants.
The Associated Press contributed to
this
report. | 
