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Saturday, September 04, 2004
RP shares Russia's pain over school bloodbath (10:20 a.m.)
MANILA -- President Arroyo said Saturday the Philippines shared Russia's "pain and anguish" over the bloody end to a school hostage drama that left more than 200 people people dead in North Ossetia.
"The Filipino people have experienced the pain and anguish of having school children and teachers held hostage in Basilan," Arroyo spokesman Ignacio Bunye said, citing the case of Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants who raided a Roman Catholic school in the southern Philippine island four years ago.
"We express our deepest sympathy to the families of the victims of the hostage crisis in Russia," Bunye said in a written statement.
"We hope and pray that the crisis will be solved in the soonest possible time with the least cost to human lives and suffering."
More than 200 people died and 700 were wounded, many of them young children, as troops stormed the school in the southern Russian republic on Friday in a harrowing operation to free 1,000 hostages from heavily-armed militants demanding independence for Chechnya. (AFP)
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