RUSSIA: Fatima waits, a mottled handkerchief folded neatly in her hand, damp with mopping up a day of panic. She is one of thousands of relatives who wait around the Palace of Culture in Beslan. They listen for news, for rumours, for anything that sounds like the truth.
A hundred metres away 354 schoolchildren, parents and teachers are being held hostage by 17 militants, two of whom are women, many wearing suicide belts. The building is mined, the militants' demands seemingly endless, disparate, and mostly unfulfillable.
Her pleas are born of a basic logic. "What can you say to these people, other than let my son go? He is called Islam - that is a Muslim name. He is only 15 and has a stomach ulcer."
As she speaks, other relatives angered that her sobs are drowning out the reading of a list of 26 hostages released hours earlier, curse her to be quiet. For the distressed multitude at the Palace of Culture, there is nothing to see, no scene to watch unfolding.
The school is hidden behind rows of tense police, armoured personnel carriers, and barricades. And so, to a growing number of them, is the truth of the day's events. "They say there are 354 in there, but this is disinformation," said Oleg, whose sister and her son are being held.
"They are hiding everything from the people. There are at least 700 people in there. And 90 per cent of them are children. The people will not forgive the authorities - especially the Russian ones - if this ends in blood."
The uncertainty and suspicion grew into frustration. A rumour that two people had been released sent a column of people charging down the road. Many did not know where they were heading or why, but were drawn by the need for something to happen.
Yesterday's grief and panic was punctuated by the worst kind of interruption. Zemfira Dzgoyeva (65) spoke of her grandson, Kambullat (9), another occupant of Middle School 1. "He's such a clever boy. He's very good at computers." She giggles as she corrects herself: "Well, he wants to be, but hasn't bought one yet."
As she speaks, one of several explosions rips through her sentence. On the other side of the school, the militants had fired a rocket-propelled grenade into a nearby Lada, perhaps for target practice, perhaps for a show of force. Gunshots and explosions, as random and as they are untraceable, ring out across the sky.
Yesterday's tense negotiations did little to ease the expectation of a bloody outcome. A source close to the negotiating team said that the militants sent nothing other than small notes outlining their demands until 5 p.m. on Wednesday when they first picked up the phone. Since then they have had half a dozen conversations with the North Ossetian president, Mr Alexander Dzasokhov, the longest of which lasted 30 minutes. He said the militants were stalling.
The scenes inside the school provide further cause for worry. The rumours fluctuate: the men have been separated from their children and put on the second floor of the main school building.
The children slept on gym mats at night. Irina, who lives near the school, said Alina Kudzayeva, a woman who was released yesterday, rang her to say: "Don't worry because they are not hurting the women and children." She said they were being kept separately from the men, and added that in total there were 1,020 hostages.