At least 115 people were killed in Friday’s attack on a Moscow concert hall by armed gunmen, Russian authorities said on Saturday, warning the death toll was likely to continue rising.
‘The emergency services have found more bodies while removing the rubble. The death toll now stands at 115 people,’ Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said in a statement.
The United Nations, European Union, France, Spain, Italy and several other countries also condemned the attack.
The White House said its ‘thoughts are with the victims of this terrible shooting attack’, while French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed ‘solidarity with the victims, their loved ones and all the Russian people’.
Orthodox church leader Patriarch Kirill was ‘praying for peace for the souls of the dead’, said his spokesman Vladimir Legoyda.
Moscow and other Russian cities have been the targets of previous attacks by Islamist groups but there have also been incidents without any clear political motive.
Earlier this month, the US embassy in Russia said it was monitoring reports that ‘extremists’ were planning ‘to target large gatherings in Moscow’, including concerts.
The White House said Friday that the United States warned Russian authorities earlier in March about a ‘planned terrorist attack’ possibly targeting ‘large gatherings’ in Moscow.
Washington had ‘shared this information with Russian authorities’, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
In 2002, Chechen separatist fighters took 912 people hostage in a Moscow theatre, the Dubrovka, demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the region.
Special forces attacked the theatre to end the hostage-taking and 130 people were killed, nearly all suffocated by a gas used by security forces to knock out the gunmen.
