Hostages wave white sheets and shout “Don’t shoot” as Russian troops storm a hospital in the city of Budyonnovsk on Saturday, June 17, 1995.

LONDON, October 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Chechnya’s representative for Europe said Thursday, October 24, that the hostage-takers who have taken several hundred people hostage in a Moscow theater, who are not part of the Chechen army, were trying to draw world attention to the tragedy in Chechnya, where all Chechens are hostages of the Russian military.

Aslambek Kadiyev said that it was “a desperate action of Chechens who are trying to draw international attention to the tragedy in Chechnya where all Chechen people are all hostages of the Russian military campaign.”

Kadiyev said the hostage-takers were not part of the Chechen army and that Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov condemned the attack against civilians.

He also said he fears the Russian military will launch an assault on the Moscow theater where hundreds of people were being held hostage by Chechen rebels, resulting in a bloodbath, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“We know from our previous experience when Russian troops take military action, they don’t care about the loss of civilians and we are afraid that this time also the civilians can be brought as a sacrifice to the military cause,” said Aslambek Kadiyev in a BBC interview.

“We would like the situation to be solved peacefully but...in the past, Russia didn't show any mercy against civilians. Thousands of civilians are killed in Chechnya and thousands are held hostages and disappear,” he said.

The hostage-taking began Wednesday evening when between 40 and 50 rebels, including women, stormed the building during a performance of “Nord-Ost,” - which is German for North East, one of the city’s most popular shows.

The rebels are demanding an end to the war in Chechnya and a withdrawal of Russian troops, where Moscow’s troops are fighting since October 1999, their second war in the breakaway Caucasus republic.

In June 1995, Chechen rebels took several hundred people hostage in a hospital at Budyennovsk, in southern Russia. The operation ended with more than 100 civilians dying when Russian troops stormed the hospital.

Meanwhile, the hostage-takers have requested that a doctor be sent to the scene along with medications for sick hostages, Russia's FSB intelligence agency said Thursday.

They “have asked for a doctor and medications to take care of some hostages who are ill,” the FSB said in a statement.

A German doctor at the scene refused to enter the theater, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

More than 700 people were taken hostage late Wednesday at a theater in the southeast of the Russian capital by the fighters, who have threatened to blow up the theater if Russia does not withdraw its forces from Chechnya.

Five hostages - a British man and four Russians - were released Thursday. Some 150 people, mostly women and children, were freed late Wednesday.

The Briton, who walked with difficulty, was escorted out of the theater by two representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and given first aid in an ambulance at the scene. He was not immediately identified.

Russian authorities have begun negotiations with the hostage-takers, the Interfax news agency quoted an FSB official as saying. 

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