At least 45 people, most of them children, have been hospitalized in the Russian region of &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/87/344/16495_chechnya.html' target=_blank>Chechnya with an illness that doctors say could be nerve-gas poisoning, officials said Tuesday.
Pupils, teachers and workers began reported breathing trouble and headaches Friday at a middle school in the town of Starogladovskaya, emergency workers said.
As of Tuesday, 38 children and seven teachers had been hospitalized, said Oleg Ugnivenko, spokesman for the southern district of the Emergency Situations Ministry. Preliminary investigation points to an unspecified kind of &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/13/39446_.html' target=_blank>nerve gas, said emergency workers and Chechen government officials.
Separatist rebels that have been fighting Russian forces in Chechnya for most of the past decade have committed a series of terrorist attacks in Chechnya and other parts of Russia, including the deadly seizure of hostages in a school in the town of Beslan in 2004.
Chechen Prosecutor General Valery Kuznetsov was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Tuesday that "to speak about a terrorist act is premature" but "all possibilities are being considered," reports AP.
O.Ch.
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