Putin comforts siege injured

Outside the heavily guarded metal gates of Clinical Hospital 13, the nearest medical facility to the theatre, distraught relatives of the hostages were milling around yesterday, desperate for news.

A grey-faced young man in his twenties said: "My wife Julia was in the theatre. I don't know if she is alive or dead. She went there with friends on Wednesday night. She phoned me on her mobile to say she had been taken hostage. I just didn't believe it until I got down to the place myself and saw what was happening."

Julia's father and sister were standing nearby. The sister, close to tears, shouted angrily: "Don't give an interview. It's not the time."

Then an official appeared at the hospital gates and began reading a list of names of hostages' relatives who were to be allowed in. The crowd surged forward to hear his low, reedy voice. Julia's husband and father disappeared into the throng.

Nearly all the hundreds of survivors were hospitalised following their release, because Russian forces used sleeping gas to knock out the people inside the theatre before storming it.

After two days without food, most of the hostages were already in a state of collapse, and many of those taken to hospitals in city buses were unconscious or were having trouble walking.

One woman, who was about to be treated for a gunshot wound, spoke of the moments before the siege ended.

"I heard a shot, then they wounded a woman and a young man," she said, speaking from a hospital stretcher. "After that, the gas came down."

Another victim, a young man, was also recovering in hospital. "They let the gas in and everybody lost consciousness," he said. "No one could think at all. Those, like me, who managed to put handkerchiefs in front of their mouths, could hear what was going on, but the others just shut off. There was shooting which went on for quite some time."

In a ward in Sklifosovsky Hospital, one survivor, Nikita, woke up to find Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, standing at the end of his bed. "Stay here and rest," Mr Putin told the patient, who replied: "Okay, I will stay and rest, but I want to take a shower."

Smiling, Mr Putin then said: "You don't take a shower every day, do you?" When Nikita pointed out that he had been held hostage for three days, Mr Putin conceded: "Then it's time for you to take a shower."