Armenia gathers donor blood for Beslan hostages
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 3, 2004 Friday
YERVAN, September 3 — Armenia has appealed to the country’s blood
donors to give blood for the hostages held in the North Ossetian town
of Beslan.
The Armenian Health Ministry has announced that any person willing
to donate blood will be welcome at the Yerevan Research Institute
of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, and Armenian Public Television
has shown the address and telephone number of the Institute, where
physicians are on duty round the clock.
Ararat Gomtsian, Head of the Armenian Consulate-General in
Russia’s Southern Federal District, told ITAR-TASS by telephone
from Rostov-on-Don on Friday that he would travel to North Ossetia
on Saturday.
If need be, he intends to organize the airlifting of the victims to
Yerevan for treatment. According to preliminary data, there were five
Armenians – four children and their mother – among the hostages taken
in Beslan.
It transpired on Friday that the hostage takers were also holding an
Armenian family of three or four people.