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Explosions and gunfire rocked a large concert venue in Moscow late on Friday, with deaths and injuries reported after attackers opened fire on a crowd of people and a blaze took hold of the building.
At least three men dressed in camouflage burst into the Crocus City Hall concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow, where a band called Picnic was due to perform, the Ria state news agency reported, citing one of its reporters, an eyewitness.
“A horrible tragedy took place today in Crocus City. My condolences to the loved ones of all the victims,” Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, said in a statement.
Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region around the capital, said he had arrived on the scene and set up a rapid response centre.
Videos from outside the building showed an enormous blaze of smoke engulfing the roof, sending a billow of smoke into the night sky.
The anonymous Baza channel on Telegram, known for its close links with Russian law enforcement, reported that at least 14 people were known to have been killed and more than 30 wounded.
Mash, another Telegram channel close to Russian police, said that at least 100 people were trapped inside the burning building, and that emergency services had begun to evacuate them through its roof.
The attackers began firing automatic weapons and then threw an explosive device into the crowd, which led a fire to engulf the building, the agency said.
“People who were in the hall fell to the ground to protect themselves from the shooting, and were lying there for 15-20 minutes, before starting to crawl out,” the Ria news agency cited its reporter as saying.
Videos posted on Russian social media showed two men with automatic weapons roaming the lobby of the venue, driving screaming people into a corner, and shooting several of them at point-blank range.
Some people could be seen prostrate on the floor of the lobby, apparently after being shot.
Another video, taken by a concertgoer, showed seats on fire inside the hall, and people trying to flee as automatic fire can be heard and smoke fills the room. “They’ve set fire to the hall,” the man filming the video can be heard saying.
In another, people are seen falling between the rows of seats to protect themselves as explosions rock the room.
“I was in the lobby, I heard machine gun fire, the crowd was running out through the service entrance,” the Russian RBC magazine cited a concertgoer as saying. “There was a crush. Once on the street I heard the machine gun fire again.”
The US embassy in Moscow issued an alert earlier this month warning about attacks on public venues including concerts.
The Russian rock group Picnic had not yet begun its performance, and the musicians were still in the green room when the shooting began.
Russia’s Rosgvardia force and other law enforcement have begun operating in the area, and videos showed emergency helicopters over the flaming roof. Over a third of the structure is now on fire, the Tass news agency reported, while Interfax said an area covering around 3,000 square metres was burning.
Crocus City Hall is located just outside the perimeter of the Russian capital, and is a major concert venue close to an exhibition centre of the same name which regularly hosts conferences and other events.
This is a developing story
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