Relatives question Beslan casualty figures

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THE GUARDIAN , BESLAN, RUSSIA
Tuesday, Sep 21, 2004,Page 6

Beslan residents, desperately searching for their missing relatives, have begun to suspect that the government has underestimated or tried to conceal the true casualty figures from the massacre.

The official death toll from the siege has remained at 329. Yet Zhana Gasiyeva, a deputy to the transport minister for North Ossetia, said that 1,347 people had been taken hostage -- a figure that contradicts the ministry of interior's total of 1,189 and the general prosecutor's figure of 1,156. A local newspaper last week printed a preliminary list of 1,388 people whom it said had been inside Middle School Number 1.

Health officials have said that about 700 people sought medical or psychological help at local hospitals after the siege. That figure plus the official death toll of 329 would suggest that up to 300 former hostages walked away from the blast scene uninjured and sought no assistance.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/09/21/2003203762