MOSCOW, 25 October — Chechen separatists, holding hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theater for second night yesterday, killed a woman as she tried to escape. Two other women trapped in the theater in southeast Moscow managed to escape but one was wounded by her captors as she fled.
Police said scores of rebels, including masked women with explosives strapped to them, had shot and killed a woman who tried to escape as they burst into the theater late on Wednesday. Her body was brought out yesterday evening.
The rebels made threats on a Chechen website and through hostages to blow up the theater or begin killing captives unless their demands were met. Police and officials estimated that there were some 700 hostages, including 75 foreigners, inside the theater.
The radio station Ekho Moskvy quoted child heart specialist Maria Shkolnikova as telling it from inside the building: "They are saying ‘You have been sitting here for 10 hours and your government has done nothing to secure your release.’ The main thing is that troops must be pulled out or they will start shooting people."
Arab satellite television station, Al-Jazeera, showed tapes of Chechen separatists saying they were ready to die for the independence of their homeland and to take the lives of "infidel" hostages. The television showed a tape of what it said was one of the women rebels saying: "It makes no difference to us where we die and we chose to die here in Moscow and we will take with us the souls of the infidels." She was one of five veiled women shown. Her comments were translated into Arabic.
Al-Jazeera also showed in a separate tape what it said was one of the male rebels. "Each of us is ready to sacrifice for God and the independence of Chechnya. We seek death more than you seek life," he said.
Shkolnikova told Reuters, also by mobile phone, that the rebels had planted explosives all around the theater hall, in passageways, on seats and even attached to hostages.
FSB security service spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko told reporters conditions inside the theater were worsening. "The situation is very tense. There are diabetics in there. There are people with heart problems."
The foreigners include four Americans, seven Germans, two Dutch, two Australians, 23 Ukrainians, three Turks, five Azeris, three Latvians, a Canadian, three Britons, two Swiss, one Bulgarian, three Georgians, an Armenian and a Moldovan, said government spokesman Sergei Ignachenko. Thirty-seven hostages have been freed, he added.
An official from a Russian crisis unit said the hostage-takers had separated the hostages into different groups. Men and women, foreign citizens, Russians and Ukrainians have been picked out and placed in separate rooms, the Interfax news agency quoted the official as saying. It was unclear what prompted the measure.
The rebels earlier separated children from their parents. The captive children were led to the theater’s balcony, while their parents were herded into the pit, a hostage said by telephone from inside the building.
President Vladimir Putin, who canceled his trip to Mexico to attend an Asia-Pacific Forum meeting, said the main task was to secure the hostages’ safe release. He said information from the rebels’ representatives confirmed that "the terrorist act was planned abroad".
Governments around the world denounced the hostage taking and urged the world community to unite against acts of terror. Acting at Russia’s request, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the seizure.
Contacts with the hostage-takers appeared erratic at best. The Chechen news website www.kavkaz.org reported what it said was a statement by the attackers’ commander, Movsar Barayev. "There’s more than a thousand people here. No one will get out of here alive and they’ll die with us if there’s any attempt to storm the building," the website quoted him saying. He called on Putin to stop the war and pull his troops out of Chechnya if he wanted to save the hostages’ lives.
Among the hostages freed were 23 children and some Muslims and a Briton in his 60s. But Iosif Kobzon, a member of Parliament and entertainer who was taking part in negotiations, told Interfax: "When I asked them to free others, they said they would release no one else."
Another negotiator, liberal deputy Irina Khakamada, outlined the rebels’ demands to a Putin aide after meeting the fighters, but no details were so far made public.
Putin, facing his sternest test since becoming president, has taken a tough stand on the conflict in Chechnya, where the Kremlin has twice launched military pushes to crush separatists.
US President George W. Bush called Putin to offer support at "a time of solidarity between the United States and Russia," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. Britain said it was sending a team of counter-terrorist experts to help secure the safe release of the hostages.
Western accusations of human rights abuses against civilians in devastated Chechnya have died down since Putin threw Moscow’s backing behind the US-led global war on terrorism following last year’s Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
It was unclear what foreign groups Putin might be accusing. Russia has drawn attention to Arab fighters in Chechnya and accuses the rebels of links to radical groups like the Afghan Taleban and Al-Qaeda, whom Washington blames for the Sept. 11 attacks. But privately, Western diplomats play down any Chechen involvement by Al-Qaeda.
An armored personnel carrier was parked in a lane near the theater, along with six trucks full of Interior Ministry troops, all in helmets and armed. Some wore masks.
But Gennady Gutkov, a member of Parliament’s security committee, said: "The building will not be stormed at the initiative of the Russian side if the terrorists do not undertake actions to kill large numbers of hostages."
Crowds of relatives waited outside the theater for news. "It’s a nightmare," said Yekaterina Ostankhova, a woman in her 70s whose 19-year-old grandson, a theater decorator, was inside. "What’s next? This is the capital of all places. I’ve come here and I’ve heard nothing. I’m just standing here. I willing to go inside, even if they kill me."
Alina Vlasova, 24, said her sister Marina was so upset when she called from inside the theater that she could barely speak. "They are standing over us with automatic rifles and are getting angrier," Alina said her sister told her.
Hostage Shkolnikova said the hostage-takers had asked to talk with representatives of Doctors Without Borders. The group’s international director Morten Rostrup was headed for Moscow yesterday evening.
"People are close to a nervous breakdown," said Shkolnikova, who added that the hostages had been fed only some water and chocolate. But Parliament member Valery Draganov told Itar-Tass that food supplies had been delivered to the theater, without specifying how.
Schools, kindergartens and institutes of higher education near the theater were closed. Extra spots in nearby hospitals were prepared in case of need. Security was increased at airports, railway stations and subway stations.
Russia has fought on and off since 1994 to quell the revolt in Chechnya, which costs lives daily among troops and civilians.
Putin’s decision as a politically inexperienced prime minister in October 1999 to order troops back into Chechnya helped to catapult him into the Kremlin. His firm handling and public fighting talk made him Russia’s most trusted politician.
