TERRORIST ATTACK IN MOSCOW: CROCUS CITY HALL
Horror strikes Moscow on March 22nd, at 19:45, as gunshots echo throughout Crocus City Hall. Four men dressed in camouflage, holding machine guns, break into the concert hall building within the seven story entertainment centre, which would be burned to the ground by morning.
“Крокус Сити Холл” / Ivan Makeev / Komsomolskaya Pravda
On the day of a concert performed by a russian musical group “Picnic”, four men drove up to the concert hall entrance, and opened fire at everyone in their way. Witnesses claimed that at the exact starting time of the concert, armed men entered the concert hall, which was fully booked for the night, with 6200 people seating capacity. “One gunman took centre stage, as three others blocked the exits, and completed either singular, or small bursts of shots, evidently trained for doing so”, claimed one of RBCs law enforcement agents (Pominov, S. 2024). Simultaneously with the shooting, the terrorists launched Molotov Cocktails at the seats, which were made from very flammable material and had not been fire proofed before the opening of Crocus in 2009 (Oglobin, S. 2024).
At 20:13 the terrorists fled the scene in a white Renault, leaving a trail of at least 143 people dead, 551 injured, and around 5000 evacuated. (Rybin, A. 2024)
By 20:18 the entire concert hall had been swallowed by fire and filled with smoke, dooming hundreds of people to suffocate, while they hid in bathrooms and other enclosed spaces. The fire spread through 12 000 sq. metres, as special forces were not allowed to enter the building or begin putting out the fire until it had been confirmed that there were no remaining threats inside.
© Sputnik / Maxim Blinov / mediabank
Distressing photo and video evidence began to circle the internet as soon as 20:10, in which people documented their attempts at survival and sent heartbreaking goodbyes to their loved ones just in case. Innocent civilians fought for their lives inside and out of Crocus City Hall. The whole country, and soon enough – the world, watched with tears in their throats as a young boy fell behind the panicking crowd, dragging his father’s red body towards the exit. As an elderly couple sat still on a couch, lifeless and hand in hand. And as the attackers shot dozens of people point blank. Desperate, yet furious cries rang out as women screamed to not touch the children, however six little lives were still taken without a second thought.
Within the next few hours, the men responsible for the shooting were caught and arrested in Bryansk, several kilometres from the Ukrainian border.
RGRU / Ivan Petrov / Российская Газета
mediazona_n / Mark Krutov / TWITTER
While the chase was still in progress, however, many theories surfaced about who is responsible for organising the crime. There were suspicions of ISIS taking the blame for the attack (lenta.ru 2024), of the whole tragedy being orchestrated by the Russian government itself, as a way to justify any further actions taken in the war with Ukraine, or the Ukrainian military being behind it. However, none of the stories have been confirmed, and the motive behind the catastrophe that altered thousands of lives still remains unclear.