Woman injured nearly year ago in Beslan hostage crisis dies

A woman injured during last September's Chechen attack on a school in the Russian city of Beslan has died, bringing the toll among hostages to 331.

Marina Zhukayeva, who was in her early 30s, died of injuries sustained during the hostage crisis. She had been on life support since shortly after the Sept. 1-3 attack, which ended in a chaotic maelstrom of explosions and gunfire. Officials had said 330 hostages died, more than half of them children.

Armed assailants seized the school in North Ossetia on the first day of classes, setting in motion the deadliest in a series of terrorist attacks that shook Russia last summer. Zhukayeva was there with her two children, who survived the ordeal, the AP reports.