Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Terrorists who seized a school in Beslan, southern Russia, are holding about 1,500 hostages and have killed at least two, said Zalina Dzandarova, a former hostage who was released yesterday.

``People are in very, very bad condition. They would be lucky'' to survive ``another day,'' Dzandarova, 27, said in a telephone interview from Beslan. At the time of the interview, she was talking to a state investigator, she said. Terrorists ``aren't giving hostages any food or water.'' The hostages can survive another eight to nine days, Leonid Roshal, a doctor, told relatives of the hostages at a meeting broadcast by NTV.

Two young men, who were kept in the gym where most of the hostages are being held, were killed by terrorists, she said. The conversation was interrupted by the investigator, who banned Dzandarova from talking further to Bloomberg News.

The armed group of as many as 20 people are demanding that Russia withdraw its troops from Chechnya, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation, Dzandarova and other released hostages said in interviews published by Russian newspapers earlier today. The government said there were no ``clear demands,'' according to Lev Dzugayev, spokesman for North Ossetia government.

The raid was the fourth terrorist incident in Russia in eight days. 89 people died in two passenger planes crashes on Aug. 24 and an explosion near a Moscow subway station Monday killed 10. Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday the incidents were ``attacks on Russia as a whole.''

Chechen Election

Russia has about 80,000 soldiers in Chechnya. The republic on Sunday elected Alu Alkhanov president in a vote organized by the pro-Putin government to replace Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in May. Rebels called the elections illegitimate.

Most of the hostages released yesterday ``are in a shock,'' North Ossetia spokesman Murat Biazrov said.

Officials from law enforcement organizations, such as the Federal Security Service and Interior Affairs Ministry, are questioning released hostages and investigating how many hostages are still in the school and whether suicide bombers with the gunmen have detonated themselves.

Russian troops invaded Chechnya in August 1999 to suppress a separatist rebellion. Since then, Putin has refused any compromise, saying the campaign in Chechnya is part of the international war on terrorism. North Ossetia borders Chechnya.

Children

Twenty-six hostages, mostly children from toddlers to six year-olds, were freed yesterday, Biazrov said in a telephone interview from Beslan. He said the government is still clarifying a number of hostages kept by gunmen.

The school is normally attended by 895 students and 59 teachers, Interfax quoted spokesman Vladimir Yakovlev as saying.

The group seized its hostages during a ceremony to begin the Russian school year. Festivities are usually held in schools across Russia on Sept. 1, with children and their parents coming to school in their best clothes and carrying flowers for teachers.

The government has said that seven people were killed and as many as 12 injured when about the armed group of about 20 armed men and women wearing explosive belts took over the school on Wednesday.

Two female suicide bombers, members of the armed group that seized the school, detonated themselves on Sept. 1, killing as many as 20 hostages, Dzandarova said, adding that hostages that she was held with didn't witness the incident. She said the gunmen ``told us they did.''

Fighting Rebels

North Ossetia borders Chechnya, where Russian troops have been fighting Islamic rebels since 1994. In August 1999, Putin ordered troops back into Chechnya, an autonomous republic within Russia, after they were withdrawn in 1996.

Chechnya also borders the Russian republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan, the region of Stavropol and the country of Georgia.

Roshal, who is a director of the Catastrophe Medical Center, negotiated with the gunmen over the phone last night, he said in the broadcast by NTV television. He said they refused to accept food, water and medicine deliveries. Roshal negotiated with Chechen rebels when they took more than 800 hostages at a Moscow theater in October 2002, demanding an end to Russia's war in Chechnya.

Theater Attack

At least 129 hostages died then in Russia's worst terrorist attack, when special forces stormed the Moscow theater, ending a three-day standoff and killing all 41 hostage-takers. Most of the dead hostages were killed by an anesthetic gas pumped into the building to subdue the Chechen rebels, who had threatened to blow up the theater if attacked.

The terrorists in Beslan are demanding talks with North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov and Ingushetian President Murat Zyazikov. Ruslan Aushev, former president of Ingushetia, negotiated with the gunmen yesterday.

The republic's separatist movement fell under the influence of Muslim fundamentalists amid Russian brutality toward civilians in a war from 1994 to 1996, when Arab mercenaries joined the conflict. Russians and Chechens have been criticized by groups such as Amnesty International for mistreating civilians.

A June 1995 attack on a maternity ward in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk, in which more than 1,000 hostages were taken, prompted the first contact between then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and rebel commanders during the previous Chechen war. Rebels also took more than 1,000 hostages in a hospital in the town of Kyzlyar in February 1996.

To contact the reporter on this story: Halia Pavliva in Moscow at at hpavliva@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 3, 2004 04:57 EDT