‘I fell to the floor and I played dead... The girl next to me was killed’
Survivors speak of the horror in Crocus City Hall after terrorists went on the rampage at a concert
MOSCOW’S Crocus City Hall was packed to the rafters on Friday night as fans of Picnic eagerly awaited the Soviet-era rock band’s arrival on stage.
The musicians were still in their dressing room when gunshots first rang out.
At first, the audience thought it was part of the build-up to the show.
Then several gunmen clad in combat fatigues burst through the doors and started shooting.
Videos shared on social media showed four or five men dressed in bulletproof vests and armed with assault rifles entering the large, marbled concert hall.
They carried a large cache of weapons and shot indiscriminately at people.
“They acted like trained fighters,” one eyewitness told Mash, a Russian news Telegram channel. “They killed the guards and people standing at the door. Then they blocked the main entrance.”
Among the most graphic footage to emerge shows the gunmen firing on those trapped in an entranceway to the concert hall for a full minute at pointblank range.
After that, the attackers lobbed an explosive device into the crowd, starting a fire which eventually burnt through the roof of the building.
People described how they played dead to survive or had other miraculous escapes.
One woman interviewed on Russian TV while in hospital being treated for burns to her hands and body said: “I fell to the floor and pretended to die. The girl next to me was killed.”
Yulia Khvatkova was running late for the concert and dashing to catch the start of the show with her boyfriend.
What she didn’t realise was that the gunmen were behind her. They opened fire just as she reached the concert hall entrance.
“I was wounded in the shoulder, my boyfriend was hit in the arms and legs. A woman fell right next to me with a bullet through her temple,” she told the Astra news agency.
“A cheerful woman was selling tickets at the entrance. When we ran away I saw her lying there with these tickets
‘A woman was selling tickets. When we ran away I saw her lying there with a bullet in her head’
‘We were literally three steps away from the entrance when a man fell down dead in front of me’
with a bullet in her head. I still have this picture in front of my eyes.”
Anna was also about to enter the concert hall with her parents when the shooting started.
“We were literally three steps away from the entrance when a man fell down dead in front of me,” she told the Russian TV channel Rain. “People started shouting: ‘Run, they’re shooting’. We didn’t realise it at first, because it sounded like firecrackers.”
Inside the hall, built to accommodate 6,200 people, the crowd dropped to the floor in a desperate bid to dodge the flurry of bullets, some attempting to crawl under seats through the thick smoke to the exits.
Many did not make it that far. Footage from the scene showed scores of bodies slumped over seats or on the ground.
Elena, 61, said one man “saved a lot of people” after he tackled one of the gunmen. She was hiding under a seat, watching an attacker near the stage shoot people when she saw the man grab his assault rifle and beat him with it.
“He just gave us the opportunity to all go out through the stage, through the emergency exit we all ran out into the street. He saved a lot of people. I don’t know if he was still alive,” she said.
The attackers then started setting fire to the hall, according to Vitaly, an eyewitness quoted by the BBC. “They threw some petrol bombs, everything started burning. We were led out towards an exit.”
Another eyewitness said children and teenagers were in the complex at the time of the attack, taking part in a ballroom dancing competition.
By yesterday morning, officials said that the death toll was more than 93, including three children, and that more than 145 had been injured, the worst attack on civilians in Russia for years. Ten people reportedly died from smoke inhalation from the fire as they hid from the gunmen in an underground loo.
Video footage from the site showed police loading heavy black body bags into dark grey refrigerated vans.
Survivors have complained that security around the high-profile venue appeared to have been too light and was easily overwhelmed by the attackers.
Crocus City Hall is one of Moscow’s most famous music venues: Elton John, Lenny Kravitz, Eric Clapton, and Dua Lipa have all performed there. The complex includes a large shopping mall. It was also the site of the Miss Universe pageant made infamous by Donald Trump’s attendance in 2013.
By late Friday night, electronic billboards across Russia were displaying the word “mourn” and a flickering candle on a black background.
Yesterday morning, news agencies on the Telegram messaging app had blacked out their avatars and queues at blood donation centres had formed across Moscow.
“This is a matter of life and death for dozens of people,” Alexey Shaposhnikov, chairman of the Moscow City Duma pleaded.
Police launched a manhunt for suspects after a gunfight with a suspected getaway car in southern Russia. Several people have been detained.
European leaders were quick to condemn the attacks, which the Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for within hours.
Two weeks ago, the US embassy in Moscow warned of a potential terror attack, advising US citizens to avoid large gatherings, including concerts. But this week Vladimir Putin dismissed the warning as “outright blackmail” intended to “intimidate and destabilise” Russian society.
US officials said their alert had been partially based on intelligence indicating a Khorasan province branch of the terror group was active inside Russia.
Some senior Russian officials, including former president Dmitry Medvedev, blamed Ukraine for the attack and threatened harsh retaliation.
Russia’s worst terror attack in more than a decade has brought a collective shudder across Europe, where memories of other music venues turned to slaughterhouses have resurfaced: the Bataclan in Paris in 2015, and the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.