Afp

Irene Soave (Corriere della Sera)

Updated Saturday, March 23, 2024-11:38

  • Live Last minute of the attack in Moscow

  • Attack in Moscow The Islamic State claims responsibility for the Moscow attack: Ukraine denies its involvement and points to a Kremlin "operation"

The selfies that began to circulate on social networks minutes after the attack on the Crocus will be forever etched in our minds. And also the video in which a completely

terrified

man crouches to hide between the seats in the auditorium where the concert was going to take place while he records hundreds of other people doing the same. Or the incoherent images of someone recording the first dead on the ground, near the entrance.

As with all concerts, there were people who arrived late. "I was entering and I found that everyone was running out of the room," says a girl on the Telegram channel Shot. "I came out in time to see the roof catch fire," she adds.

A woman tells

the Sirena channel

that her mother, recently widowed, had gone to the concert with her sister so she could have fun. She was also among those who arrived late, "lining up at the entrance with a few dozen other people, when in the line behind them some terrorists started shooting. My mother says she ran away, then fell and they helped her." to stand up."

Other witnesses tell the media that the security at the entrance did not carry out the usual checks on bags and jackets, and that the metal detectors were turned off, while other witnesses affirm that the latter were in operation.

"I thought I would be an orphan: my mother was there in the front row with her friends," Mijail tells the Meduza website. "She came back in a taxi, terrified and black with smoke, covered in ash, with her lips bitten," she adds.

Another witness claims that the speakers began to say that the concert was being canceled for technical reasons. "I bumped into a girl on the first floor covered in blood," he says. Many claim to have

confused the shots, at first, with sound effects.

Photographer Dave Primov has posted images of the evacuation on his Instagram stories: he was at the concert and "ten minutes into the concert we heard the gunshots. My friend said, 'Hey, fireworks!' Then we saw that one." "people who come in like locomotives and machine-gun us." Primov crawled out of the room. He assures that there were "those who were sobbing, those who called home and those who were waiting for the elevator." All in vain. "The smell of smoke spread, the emergency doors were blocked, we knocked them down," he recalls.

Many took refuge in the basement of the shopping center. Polina L., in Moscow 24: "People trampled the bodies on the ground. My mother and I saved ourselves by running two kilometers and then hitchhiking." The reporters arrive, the police beat them.

"Fear" and "total despair": the shock after the deadly attack on a concert hall has turned into a night of agonizing wait for the families of the victims,

with no news about their loved ones.

On Friday night, hundreds of fans gathered to watch a concert by the rock group

Piknik

, but minutes before the start of the show, armed individuals entered the room and unleashed chaos.

"I'm completely terrified, I feel like my whole body hurts," laments Semion Khraptsov, whose wife was at the concert and called him at the time of the assault without him being able to understand what she was saying. "I came as soon as I knew what happened," adds the 33-year-old man, who admits feeling helpless. "I don't know what to do,

it's total desperation

," he emphasizes.

Some people tell the Varlamov Telegram channel that they saw the attackers,

"who seemed trained and prepared",

throwing gasoline bottles. Some say they saw a white van from which armed men got out.

As for the terrorists... one witness claims to have seen "five", another speaks of "about twenty", but they are always described as "paramilitaries", dressed "in brown vests" or "camouflage".

Attack in Moscow shopping center

The Kremlin has announced that it has arrested 11 people, including four assailants linked to the attack, claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group. The attack took place at the

Crocus City Hall,

located in

Krasnogorsk

, at the northwest exit of Moscow.

The venue houses one of the main concert halls in Moscow. "Just before the start of the concert, we suddenly heard

several machine gun bursts

and a woman's terrible scream. And then a lot of screams," says Alexei, a music producer who was in the dressing rooms at the time of the assault.

"Only three or four bursts at the beginning, then a few more," he adds. From the dressing rooms she observed the panic of the spectators. "People were running to the stage, a terrible movement of the crowd."

Along with other people at the scene,

he "barred in" before looking for a way to get out quickly.

On the way she says that she saw "smoke and ashes" in one of the rooms, before reaching the exit. By Saturday morning, firefighters had almost completely controlled the large fire that broke out after the shooting, according to authorities.

The Investigative Committee reports that the alleged attackers used "flammable liquid" to set the building on fire.