Steve Quayle News Alerts

Oct. 26, 2002
By Valeria Korchagina

They have no running water and use the orchestra pit for a toilet. They have some food and drinking water, but don't want to eat because it means going to the toilet. They sleep in the theater seats, and on the floor when they can, surrounded by explosives. They talk to the outside world when ordered to. And they wait.

This is what the lives of some 700 people have been reduced to since shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday, when they were taken hostage during the "Nord Ost" show.

"Right next to my son is a pile of explosives," said Oleg, a businessman whose wife and 15-year-old child are among the hostages. He said the explosives are placed along the perimeter of the audience, as well as between the rows.

Already uncomfortable and on edge, the hostages are drilled by the Chechen hostage-takers on how to behave if federal forces try to take the building, said Oleg Bespalov, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, who arrived at the scene with representatives of diplomatic missions Friday.

"There are 32 gunmen in the hall and an explosive device in the middle, plus the Chechens are constantly training the hostages on what they expect them to do in case the building is stormed," Bespalov said, without elaborating on what the hostages are being trained to do.

The minute by minute, hour by hour life of the hostages is an ordeal to combat stress and deal with basic biological needs.

"They have become a kind of family. Some of them even argue with each other. They try to laugh. They are just trying to survive," Leonid Roshal, a pediatric surgeon, told Reuters.

Roshal, who earned the Chechens' trust while working as doctor in Chechnya, spent hours inside the theater on Thursday and Friday.

"Many are suffering from stress, of course they are. Can anyone imagine living under those conditions? They don't know whether the troops will storm the building, whether they will be shot or not. ... They don't know what is going to happen," he was quoted as saying.

Speaking on NTV television, Roshal said although two or three women were hysterical, most people were calm. There were people in need of medical assistance, but the hostage takers were allowing them to bring in medicine, he said.

Alexander, a Muscovite in his 20s whose mother is among the hostages, was outside the theater Friday. He said Roshal told the relatives that the toilets were closed after the two women escaped Thursday. "Apparently they somehow ran away through the toilet," Alexander said.

When the toilets were closed, the hostages began using the orchestra pit. "And now imagine," said Oleg, who has talked to his wife by mobile phone. "It's huge concert hall and one has to march to the toilet right in front of everyone."

So the hostages are trying to go to the toilet as infrequently as possible, he said. "They do have water and food. But they don't drink it," he said. Alexander said he heard the same from his mother.

Both men said they had received phone calls from their loved ones, but they suspected the gunmen were controlling the use of the phones.

"I have a suspicion that my mother spoke at a gun point," Alexander said. Like many other hostages, she asked her relatives to come to a rally Friday to support the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya -- the hostage-takers' demand.

"It looks as if when there is something to say, when the Chechens have something to say, they allow calls and tell people to pass on the message," Oleg said.

Hostages' earlier descriptions of the gunmen -- men wearing masks and women dressed in black from head to toe, all armed and carrying explosives -- were confirmed Friday when NTV got its cameras into the building. NTV was not allowed into the audience, where most of the hostages are, but filmed six woman hostages who had been brought into a room that looked like a kitchen.

The six women were reported to have said that they were treated reasonably and holding up well.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2002/10/26/011.html