Moscow, 23 March 2024 (dpa/MIA) - At least 115 people, including three children, were killed in Friday evening's terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall event centre in north-west Moscow, authorities said on Saturday.

The figure had climbed from earlier reports of 93 fatalities. While clearing away the rubble in the centre's concert hall, emergency services found more bodies, the Moscow Investigative Committee announced on Telegram on Saturday.

Five people died in hospital from their injuries, including the children, according to the Moscow region health ministry.

As the official number of injured rose above 100, authorities called on people to donate blood and set up several centres for this purpose.

Unidentified men wearing camouflage clothing stormed the Crocus City Hall shortly before the start of a concert in the suburb of Krasnogorsk and opened fire on the crowd, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said.

The terrorist militia Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, the IS mouthpiece Amaq Agency reported, citing unnamed sources. Russian authorities had yet to comment on the claim.

Meanwhile, the FSB domestic intelligence service told TASS that 11 arrests had been made following the attack.

Also on Saturday, Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein wrote on Telegram that two men had been arrested travelling with weapons in a getaway vehicle in the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine and Belarus.

Other suspects were being searched for in a nearby forest, the politician from the Kremlin's United Russia party added.

Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, had on Friday emphatically denied any Ukrainian involvement in the attack.

Russian media had previously reported gunshots and the sound of explosions in the centre and 145 people injured.

The victims are said to be both employees and visitors to the concert hall. The Russian rock band Piknik had been scheduled to perform on Friday evening.

Perpetrators shot indiscriminately at visitors, eyewitnesses said. People running for their lives and injured people reported many victims on social networks. There were also explosions in the building and a major fire. 

The centre to the north-west of Moscow is one of the most popular event centres in the capital, hosting concerts, trade fairs and exhibitions.

The situation there was calm in the morning. Emergency services were extinguishing pockets of embers after the blaze in the building, according to the fire brigade.

Once the fire had been completely extinguished, the debris from the collapsed roof of the concert hall was to be removed. Police, the National Guard and the Investigative Committee recorded the damage and secured evidence.

On Saturday morning, weapons and ammunition, as well as CTV footage, were taken from the scene, Ria Novosti news agency reported.

The search for several suspected perpetrators, who were able to escape, also continued.

According to the lawmaker Khinshtein, the vehicle in Bryansk had failed to stop during a police chase on Friday evening, was shot at and then overturned.

"One terrorist was arrested on the spot, the others hid in the forest," the lawmaker wrote. A second suspect was arrested in the early morning, he added. 

A pistol and a Kalashnikov assault rifle as well as passports belonging to citizens of the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan were found inside the vehicle, he wrote.

Photo: EPA