Commandos stormed a school today in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled the building through explosions and gunfire.

Russia’s school siege ended in a chaotic bloodbath today with more than 150 hostages and some of their captors killed when special forces stormed the building in an unplanned onslaught.

More than 100 bodies were reported to be lying in the burned-out gym of the Russian school where an armed siege ended in its third day after commandos stormed the building.

A hostage released from a provincial Russian school said there are at least 1,500 people being held there by armed militants, the Izvestia newspaper reported today, and a local legislator announced a similar figure challenging far-lower official numbers.