By the evening- Beslan had still not quietened down. Fighting continued near the school. Also near the school lay 27 body bags containing “terrorists”. For some it was time for the good news- their relatives have been found- alive. Others were directed to the morgue. Others went from hospital to hospital assiduously studying the lists- hoping the name they were looking for would be in the column: alive. TV News reported the assault on the school as a success. It was clear that the full scale of the tragedy would emerge- tomorrow…

On Saturday at 12 noon near the building of the Palace of Culture a meeting was held. At first they said that people should take the bodies of their dead children to Vladikavkaz, and put them on the main square outside the Regional administrative HQ so that Dzasokhov would have to confront the reality of his “success”. But Beslan was a closed town in a state of emergency- no one comes in, no one goes out. For the first time people were asked for their papers on entry or exit. Local government HQ had its security system reinforced. People came in droves to the square outside the Palace of Culture. No less than 1000 gathered there. They were those who had been unable to find their loved ones in the hospitals and morgues and processing points in Beslan. By morning 250 dead had been identified. By Saturday evening- 320. There were 100 unidentified bodies. Women- weeping – told of headless corpses of children lying unidentified in morgues. Others had had their arms, or legs blown off. But most died of gunshot wounds. The officials from the Ministry of Emergencies said that on Saturday over 140 bodies had been found in the rubble of the school, and that there was a minimum of 300 more still to remove. It is claimed that the hostage takers used these kids as a human shield. Equally likely- they were simply caught in the crossfire, caught in the rain of bullets that began when the Russian special forces opened fire.

Details emerge: the terrorists had taken weapons and ammunition into the school prior to the event. In August there was a warning of a future terrorist attack on the town- that the local authorities chose to ignore. In spite of all this- officials claim the assault a success. The head of the local Secret Police (FSB) had only one regret – that more Spetsnaz troops died than had been predicted. Someone in the audience of the meeting- which no local or federal government official attended- shouted: and what about the hostages? But there was no time for questions. The FSB man got up an left.