ISTANBUL, Sept 2 (AFP) - Two of the three Turks held hostage at a Russian school close to Chechnya were among the 26 women and children released on Thursday, a member of the family told the CNN Turk news channel.
Cetin Dogan said from his home in Izmir, western Turkey that his brother Seyfi's wife and one-year-old baby were freed by the Chechen separatists who have been holding hundreds of hostages since Wednesday morning at the school in Beslan in North Ossetia.
The couple's nine-year old daughter, a fourth-grade student at the school, is still being held, he said, adding that the mother and the baby were taken to a hospital, without giving further details.
Describing the incident in a telephone interview from the scene, Seyfi Dogan earlier told the network that the hostage takers were "shooting day and night... (they) barricaded the windows with tables and chairs and they just keep shooting."
Dogan explained that he had decided to visit the region, the homeland of his ancestors, in 1992, liked it, married a Russian woman who took on his Turkish nationality, settled there and was now working as a baker.
The attack, which has claimed 12 lives so far, led to the postponement Thursday of a planned visit to Turkey by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his defense and foreign ministers, Sergei Ivanov and Sergei Lavrov.
Ankara on Thursday condemned the hostage-taking as an "unacceptable act of terrorism... which can in no way be justified."