Beslan school siege

The Beslan school siege was a terrorist attack in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia, in southern Russia, in which armed militants took more than a thousand people hostage at School Number One on the first day of the school year. The attackers, linked to Chechen separatists and led by the warlord Shamil Basayev, demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. After a standoff of three days, explosions occurred in the school gymnasium and a chaotic battle followed, in which Russian security forces used heavy weapons. More than three hundred hostages died, around half of them children. The attack caused national shock, and the conduct of the authorities was widely criticized, including by the European Court of Human Rights.

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