Russia hostages evacuated, commandos fighting kidnappers
(Reuters)
Updated: 2004-09-03 21:02

 

Russian Interior Ministry officer helps a boy to flee a school seized by heavily armed masked men and women in the town of Beslan in the province of North Ossetia near Chechnya , September 3, 2004. Russian soldiers battled Chechen separatists on Friday to end a two-day-old school siege as naked children ran out screaming amid explosions and machinegun fire. [Reuters]

A boy runs for cover after he was released from the school seized by heavily armed masked men and women in the town of Beslan in the province of North Ossetia near Chechnya , September 3, 2004. [Reuters]

A boy is carried by his father after he was released from the school seized by heavily armed masked men and women in the town of Beslan in the province of North Ossetia near Chechnya , September 3, 2004. [Reuters]

Russian Interior Ministry officer carries an injured girl after she was released from the school seized by heavily armed masked men and women in the town of Beslan in the province of North Ossetia near Chechnya, September 3, 2004. [Reuters]