He added that there are no children among the dead.
"Throughout the night we were collating lists of people taken hostage. We prepared water and food, but it is yet impossible to pass it on," Dzugayev said. He said the headquarters has information that the children are in a satisfactory condition.
Dzugayev repeated that although contact with the militants exists, it is only one-way, and it is too difficult to say for the time being what precise demands they are making. "Nor can we as yet say who these people are and who stands behind them," he added.
Dzugayev reported that the doctor Leonid Roshal, who is in Beslan, is as yet unsuccessfully trying to establish contact with the gunmen.
According to North Ossetia's Interior Ministry, 15 schoolchildren managed to escape from the captured school during Wednesday, Kazbek Dzantiyev, the North Ossetian Interior Minister, said during a meeting with relatives of the hostages.
"Immediately after the seizure, 12 schoolchildren succeeded in hiding themselves in a boiler room, from which they were moved out. Then, in the course of the day, three more were able to escape. No one else could be released," he said.
All the night through the hot telephone line at the emergency headquarters to free hostages in North Ossetia was receiving calls from people concerned for the children and their parents.
"Calls came from all over Russia, beginning with Moscow and ending with Magadan. There were callers from St Petersburg, Komi, Karelia, and Obninsk. Rings were made from Armenia, Azerbaijan and even New York," a hot line operator told RIA Novosti.
He said calls are made not only by relatives, but also by non-relatives, and they make up about 30 per cent of all those who ring up.
"There are people offering themselves as hostages instead of the children. They express their sympathy, and suggest their methods of resolving problems, although most of the calls are, of course, from relatives," the RIA Novosti source said.
Quite a number of calls come, according to him, from believers. "They are praying and wish for a successful outcome."
The telephone number of the round-the-clock hot line is 8-867-37-31-554.
The situation in the area of the school seized by militants in Beslan remains relatively calm, reports a RIA Novosti correspondent from the scene of action.
Outside the cultural centre and the town administration building, where the emergency headquarters is situated, there still stand relatives and parents of the schoolchildren taken hostage.
From the side of the school there came several single shots/ According to police officials, these shots fired by militants are of a warning nature, as it was throughout the previous day.
At the same time the UN Security Council has demanded an immediate and unconditional release of all hostages captured in the course of a terrorist attack in Beslan.
The UN Security Council, in a statement adopted at an emergency meeting on Wednesday, described the bandits' action as a disgusting act of terror.
The Security Council strongly condemned the terrorist attacks in Moscow and on two Russian passenger jets, which have resulted in numerous fatal human casualties and injured.
The Security Council expresses its deepest sympathy with and condolences to the people and government of the Russian Federation, and also to victims of these terrorist attacks and their relatives, the statement says.
The Security Council urged all states, in accordance with their obligations assumed in fulfilment of resolution 1373 of 2001, to actively cooperate with Russian authorities in their efforts to identify and bring to justice the doers, organisers and providers of finance for these terrorist attacks.
"Absolutely all Security Council members unanimously expressed their most heartfelt and sincere sympathy with our people and support for the Russian government's efforts on the counter-terrorist track," Andrei Denisov, Russia's UN permanent representative, said at the conclusion of the meeting. "The Security Council has demonstrated its principled, consistent and deep-thought will to counter terrorism."
Josep Borrel, new president of the European parliament, strongly condemned the hostage-taking in North Ossetia.
No demands, be they political or religious, can justify this base act, Borrel says in a statement obtained by RIA Novosti.
These odious terrorists bring death to and blackmail people who happen to cross their way, the statement stresses.
The head of the European parliament expressed solidarity with the families of the Russians taken hostage by the terrorists.
Borrel also condemned the terrorist attack in Moscow and expressed condolences to the near and dear ones of those killed.
