8) Beslan School Hostage Crisis – 2004

In September 2004 a three-day ordeal began for the pupils and staff at Beslan school, Russia. In total 1,100 people were kept hostage and by the end of the proceedings 334 were dead, 186 of which were children. The situation was orchestrated by a group of Islamist separatists under the command of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev. The Chechen separatists wanted Chechnya to be recognised as independent and the UN and Russia to remove their troops.

The heavily armed gunmen walked into the school, herded everyone into the gym, took their mobile phones and ordered them to only speak in Russian and only when spoken to. One father who was present stood up to reiterate those demands to everyone in their local Ossetia dialect. Once he’d stopped talking one of the rebels asked him if he had finished and shot him in the head. They also shot another man who refused to kneel down.

Then some of the stronger looking hostages were taken to a corridor where one of the suicide bombers belts was detonated remotely, that killed most people in the hallway; those that hadn’t died were ordered to lie down and were then shot. One man managed to survive the bomb and the rifle fire and was allowed back to the sports hall with the others. The dead bodies were thrown out of the windows of the school. This was just the beginning of three hellish days.