Russia marks national day of mourning for victims of concert hall attack : NPR

MOSCOW — Household and mates of these nonetheless lacking after an assault that killed greater than 130 folks at a suburban Moscow live performance corridor waited for information of their family members as Russia noticed a day of nationwide mourning on Sunday.

Occasions at cultural establishments had been canceled, flags had been lowered to half-staff and tv leisure and promoting had been suspended, in accordance with state information company RIA Novosti. A gentle stream of individuals added to a makeshift memorial close to the burnt-out live performance corridor, creating an enormous mound of flowers.

“Folks got here to a live performance, some folks got here to chill out with their households, and any one among us might have been in that state of affairs. And I wish to specific my condolences to all of the households that had been affected right here and I wish to pay tribute to those folks,” Andrey Kondakov, one of many mourners who got here to put flowers on the memorial, informed The Related Press.

“It’s a tragedy that has affected our total nation,” kindergarten worker Marina Korshunova mentioned. “It simply does not even make sense that babies had been affected by this occasion.” Three kids had been among the many useless.

The assault, which has been claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group, is the deadliest on Russian soil in years.

As rescuers proceed to go looking the broken constructing and the loss of life toll rises as extra our bodies are discovered, some households nonetheless do not know if relations who went to the occasion focused by gunmen on Friday are alive. Moscow’s Division of Well being mentioned Sunday it has begun figuring out the our bodies of these killed through DNA testing, which can want no less than two weeks.

Igor Pogadaev was desperately looking for any particulars of his spouse’s whereabouts after she went to the live performance and stopped responding to his messages.

He hasn’t seen a message from Yana Pogadaeva since she despatched her husband two pictures from the Crocus Metropolis Corridor music venue.

After Pogadaev noticed the studies of gunmen opening hearth on concertgoers, he rushed to the location, however could not discover her within the quite a few ambulances or among the many a whole bunch of people that had made their means out of the venue.

“I went round, searched, I requested everybody, I confirmed pictures. Nobody noticed something, nobody might say something,” Pogadaev informed the AP in a video message.

He watched flames bursting out of the constructing as he made frantic calls to a hotline for relations of the victims, however acquired no data.

Because the loss of life toll mounted on Saturday, Pogodaev scoured hospitals within the Russian capital and the Moscow area, searching for data on newly admitted sufferers.

However his spouse wasn’t among the many 154 reported injured, nor on the checklist of fifty victims authorities have already recognized, he mentioned.

Refusing to imagine that his spouse may very well be one of many 137 individuals who died within the assault, Pogadaev nonetheless hasn’t gone house.

“I could not be alone anymore, it’s totally tough, so I drove to my pal’s,” he mentioned. “Now no less than I will be with somebody.”

The Moscow Area’s Emergency Conditions Ministry posted a video Sunday displaying gear dismantling the broken music venue to provide rescuers entry.

In the meantime, President Vladimir Putin seems to be making an attempt to tie Ukraine to the assault, one thing its authorities firmly denies.

Russian authorities arrested 4 suspected attackers on Saturday, Putin mentioned in an nighttime handle to the nation, amongst 11 folks detained suspicion of involvement within the assault. He mentioned that they had been captured whereas fleeing to Ukraine.

Although no courtroom listening to has been formally introduced, there was a heavy police presence round Moscow’s Basmanny District Courtroom on Sunday. Police tried to drive journalists away from the courtroom.

Putin referred to as the assault “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and mentioned Russian authorities captured the 4 suspects as they had been making an attempt to flee to Ukraine by way of a “window” ready for them on the Ukrainian aspect of the border.

Russian media broadcast movies that apparently confirmed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, together with one who informed the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher through a messaging app and paid to participate within the raid.

Kyiv strongly denied any involvement, and the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed accountability.

Putin did not point out IS in his speech to the nation, and Kyiv accused him and different Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia’s struggle in Ukraine, which just lately entered its third 12 months.

U.S. intelligence officers mentioned they’d confirmed the IS affiliate’s declare.

“ISIS bears sole accountability for this assault. There was no Ukrainian involvement in any way,” Nationwide Safety Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson mentioned in an announcement.

The U.S. shared data with Russia in early March a few deliberate terrorist assault in Moscow, and issued a public warning to People in Russia, Watson mentioned.

The raid was a serious embarrassment for the Russian chief and occurred simply days after he cemented his grip on the nation for an additional six years in a vote that adopted the harshest crackdown on dissent for the reason that Soviet occasions.

Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who’ve relentlessly suppressed any opposition actions and muzzled unbiased media, failed to forestall the assault regardless of the U.S. warnings.

White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned in an announcement that the U.S. condemned the assault and mentioned that the Islamic State group is a “widespread terrorist enemy that should be defeated all over the place.”

IS, which fought towards Russia throughout its intervention within the Syrian civil warfare, has lengthy focused Russia. In an announcement posted by the group’s Aamaq information company, the IS Afghanistan affiliate mentioned that it had attacked a big gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.

The group issued a brand new assertion Saturday on Aamaq, saying the assault was carried out by 4 males who used computerized rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It mentioned the assailants fired on the crowd and used knives to kill some concertgoers, casting the raid as a part of the Islamic State group’s ongoing warfare with nations that it says are combating towards Islam.

In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger aircraft over Sinai, killing all 224 folks on board, most of them Russian vacationers coming back from Egypt.

The group, which operates primarily in Syria and Iraq but in addition in Afghanistan and Africa, additionally has claimed accountability for a number of assaults in Russia’s unstable Caucasus and different areas in previous years. It recruited fighters from Russia and different elements of the previous Soviet Union.