Terrorists found more than 500 rounds of ammunition at the scene.
Moscow:
As many as 95 people are still missing after last week’s attack near Moscow in which gunmen sprayed concertgoers with automatic weapons and set fire to the venue, a Russian news outlet reported on Wednesday.
The current official tally of the Crocus City Hall attack is 140 people killed and 182 injured. But the Bassa news agency, which has good links with Russia’s security and law enforcement agencies, said 95 more people had appeared on a list compiled by emergency services based on appeals from missing relatives.
“These lists include people whose relatives have been unable to contact since the terrorist attacks, but they are not on the lists of the injured and dead,” Baza said. “Some of them have died but have not yet been identified.”
Russian investigators said the attack was carried out by four gunmen using Kalashnikov automatic weapons. More than 500 rounds of ammunition were found at the scene.
The shooting occurred shortly before Soviet-era rock band Picnic was set to perform for a sold-out crowd of 6,200 people. On Saturday, Baza reported that more than 200 people may have been inside the burning building before the roof collapsed, citing emergency services sources who reviewed surveillance footage.
In the days after the shooting, Russian social media channels were flooded with appeals for help finding the victims.
Friends and relatives gathered in a Telegram chat room called “Crocus. Help Center” to share the names of missing concertgoers and offer support.
“Is there anyone named Igor Valentinovich Klimenchenko on the list?” one user wrote on Saturday night. “Can someone send me a list of the victims?”
Klimenko’s name was not included in the list of confirmed dead released by Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry.
‘very worried’
Another person wrote in the same chat that their uncle worked not far from Crocus and had not been in contact since the attack. “I am very worried,” the nephew wrote Saturday night.
A woman is still searching for her son Dmitry Bashlykov, a teacher in Moscow who went with a friend, local media in Russia’s southwestern Bryansk region reported on Wednesday. Attends the “Picnic” concert, but manages to escape.
Bashlykov’s name was not on the Emergencies Ministry list.
Several missing people have been confirmed dead, including 15-year-old Arseny, who went to the concert with his mother, Irina Vedeneyeva.
On Sunday, the SHOT Telegram channel posted a photo of Arseny that he said he had sent to his grandmother shortly before the concert, along with a link to help the “distraught pensioner” find him appeal. His mother was confirmed dead, SHOT said.
In the photo, Arsene is wearing a black hooded sweatshirt in front of a picnic poster for what SHOT said is his favorite band. On Monday, the channel wrote that Arseny’s body had been found and identified by his relatives.
The names of mother and son are on the confirmed death list published by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
