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Death toll from Moscow attack rises to 143 - authorities

People continue to lay flowers and light candles at the site of the attack
People continue to lay flowers and light candles at the site of the attack

The death toll from the attack on a concert hall near Moscow last Friday has increased to 143, according to officials in Russia.

Authorities listed the names of the dead on the Russian ministry for civil defence and emergency situations website five days after the atrocity, claimed by Islamic State militants.

Eighty people injured in the attack, including six children, remain in hospital, TASS news agency quoted Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko as saying.

An anonymous medical source told TASS that 205 people had received outpatient care.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said yesterday that many people in shock had initially not gone to hospital for treatment.

On Friday, gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City concert hall and set fire to the venue.

Four attack suspects - all from Tajikistan according to Russian state media - are under arrest along with several suspected accomplices.

A Moscow court ordered the four men - charged with committing an act of terrorism - be held in pre-trial detention until 22 May, a date likely to be extended until a full trial.

The court said two of the defendants had pleaded guilty, and one of them, from Tajikistan, had "entirely acknowledged his guilt".

There has been no information on the seven others that Russia said on Saturday it had arrested in connection with the attack.

The attack was swiftly claimed by Islamic State although Moscow has repeated its initial line of a link to Ukraine. Kyiv has rejected any involvement.

Russia has for some years been a target of Islamic State owing to its role in suppressing unrest in regions with a substantial Muslim majority as well as its support for the regime in Syria's civil war.

On Monday, three days after the attack, President Vladimir Putin admitted for the first time that the presumed gunmen were radical Islamists but continued to insist on a link to Ukraine, saying the perpetrators were headed there when they were caught some 150km from the border.

He has vowed to punish those behind the "barbaric terrorist attack".

Over 90 people reported missing after attack

Earlier, a Russian news outlet reported that more than 90 people were missing after the atrocity.

The Baza service, believed to have good contacts in Russian security and law enforcement, said that 95 people appeared in lists compiled by emergency services based on appeals from people about missing relatives.

"These lists include people with whom relatives have not been able to get in touch since the terrorist attack, but who are not on the lists of wounded and dead," Baza said.

"Some of these people died, but have not yet been identified."

Russian investigators said the attack was carried out by four men using Kalashnikov automatic weapons. More than 500 rounds were found at the scene.

The shooting began shortly before the Soviet-era rock group "Picnic" was set to play to a full house of 6,200 people.

Over 200 people could have been in the blazing building moments before the roof collapsed, Baza reported, citing emergency service sources who reviewed surveillance footage.

Russian social media channels have been flooded in the days since the attack with appeals to help find victims.

Gathering in a Telegram chat called "Crocus. Help Centre," friends and relatives shared names of missing concertgoers and offered support.

"Was there anyone on the list named Igor Valentinovich Klimenchenko?," one user wrote on Saturday night. "Can someone send the list of victims?"

The name Klimenchenko was not on the list of confirmed dead published by Russia's emergencies ministry.

The detention of the four suspects is to continue until 22 May

Another person wrote in the same chat that their uncle worked not far from Crocus and had not been in touch since the attack. "I'm very worried," the nephew wrote.

Local media in the Bryansk region, southwestern Russia, reported that a woman was still searching for her son, Dmitry Bashlykov, a schoolteacher in Moscow who went to the concert with a friend who managed to escape.

Bashlykov's name was not on the emergencies ministry list.

Several missing people have since been confirmed dead, including 15-year-old Arseny, who went to the concert with his mother, Irina Vedeneyeva.

The SHOT Telegram channel published a photo of Arseny that it said he sent his grandmother shortly before the concert began, along with appeals from the "grief-stricken pensioner" to help find him.

His mother had already been confirmed dead, SHOT said.

In the photo, Arseny stands in a black hooded sweatshirt in front of a poster for Picnic, which SHOT said was his favourite band.

The channel said that Arseny's body had been found and identified by his relatives.

The names of both mother and son are on the list of confirmed dead published by Russia's emergencies ministry.

The attack was the deadliest in Russia since the Beslan school siege in 2004.