Relief, grief and confusion in Russia

UNDER a grove of pine and spruce trees, the children laid on stretchers - dazed, shaken, fragile, and bloodied. Parents hugged them, cried, gave them water. They were safe.

Only moments earlier, the same children had been at the centre of a maelstrom of explosions and bullets, of shattered windows, bodies and masonry - a mind-bending cauldron of bloodshed that brought Russia’s hostage crisis to a head Friday and left more than 150 people dead.

At first, there was only confusion - for the victims, for the families, and for the millions of horrified spectators around the world. To the beat of a sickening rattle of gunfire, blood-smeared girls stripped down to their underwear fled the school gymnasium where they had been kept captive - a scene chillingly evocative of the iconic image of a naked girl screaming in pain and terror as she runs from a napalm attack during the Vietnam War.