The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan massacre) started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days and involved the capture of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children), ending with the death of 385 people. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic separatist militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation) on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were the Riyadus-Salikhin Battalion, sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya at the UN and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons.