Moscow attack: Eyewitnesses said, 'The attackers were firing machine guns at the crowd..
On Friday evening, gunmen entered the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russia and opened fire with machine guns.
This hall is one of the largest venues in Moscow for music concerts, where about six thousand people can attend at a time.
In the evening, there were thousands of people in the hall, who had come to participate in the concert of Picnic Group.
All the tickets for the concert had been sold.
All the tickets for the concert had been sold.
According to official figures, the death toll in the attack has increased to 115, while a large number of people have been injured. Children are also included among those who died. The BBC has spoken to people who saw the firing in the hall and managed to escape.
'We thought firecrackers were going off...
The concert at the Crocus Hall was to begin at eight o’clock at night, but a few minutes before the concert was attacked by gunmen. By this time most of the audience had taken their seats in the hall.
Moscow resident Sofio Kvirikashvili came to the concert with her husband.
“We were sitting in the sixth row of the VIP area. Some music was playing and posters for upcoming events were being shown on the screen. The second bell rang and the hall was more than half full,” he told the BBC.
Dave Primov, a photographer who was present in the hall at the time of the shooting, says, “We were upstairs in the balcony. There were about ten minutes left for the concert to start, a lot of people had already arrived. By this time the hall was about 70 percent full. “
Similarly, Eva is also one of those people who were in the Crocus City Hall at the time of the attack. She is the assistant of the dance group which was to go on stage at eight in the night.
Eva says, “Five minutes before going out, we started getting ready to go backstage. I was in the dressing room backstage.”
Those who were already present in the hall could not see how unknown gunmen entered and started firing. At first people did not understand what was happening?
Sofio Kvirikashvili says, “We did not understand that there were shots being fired, we thought that some kind of firecrackers were being fired. These sounds did not stop, I kept thinking that these were some kind of firecrackers etc. Then I I looked once in the hall, then looked a second time and finally for the third time I understood that people were running in different directions all around the hall.”
Photographer Dave Privov tells something like this, “We heard sounds, we thought they were firecrackers. My friend was also with me in the hall at that time. He also initially took these sounds as the sound of firecrackers. But a little later. Soon we saw that people were walking in a line near the stage below, I did not understand this at that time.”
Lives saved due to the intelligence of security personnel
Eva says, “I work in cinema, so I am not afraid of bullets. Initially I did not understand anything. We were in the dressing room. We saw a crowd of people running away. We heard the noise and we People also picked up their jackets and started running towards the road with the crowd.”
Sofiko says that when the attack happened, her husband was the first to pick her up and say, “Run, I’ll meet you later.”
She says, “We did not run away. We first went backstage peacefully and then reached the street with the help of the service corridor. Someone in the crowd shouted that some madman was shooting.”
According to him, the security staff of the Crocus City Hall announced that everyone should go towards the stage.
She says, “Many people ran with us, but this was the crowd that was not yet frightened. I waited for my husband in the corridor behind the stage, after which we started running towards our car parked on the road. “
Eva also says that the security personnel had opened all the exit gates with immediate effect.
She said, “At the time of the attack, the security personnel guided the people in a professional manner and appealed to no one to panic. I was just walking with the crowd.”
Those who were sitting in the balcony above, did not have enough time to run near the stage and reach the road with the help of the corridor behind. He used another route to get out.
Dave Privov, who was on the balcony, says, “The sounds of firecrackers started getting louder and closer than before, after which there was a panic in the hall, people started running everywhere. People were running into each other while running because they had to get out.” There was no way to get out.”
At that moment, shooting began in the concert hall to the left of the stage, and Dave Privov saw the attackers enter the hall. Dave Privov and his friends were sitting in the balcony away from the stage.
He told that the attackers were wearing brown colored clothes and they were opening fire with machine guns on the crowd of people.