“Honestly, I don't consider myself a hero, it was just part of my job,” 15-year-old Islam Khalilov said in a video from Russian state media RT.
Yet this is how the teenager has been presented since the attack on a concert hall in Moscow on Friday, which left at least 137 dead.
Working part-time in the Crocus City Hall locker room, he was present at the time of the assault and helped evacuate around a hundred people, according to Russian media.
“When people started running down the escalator, down the stairs, I understood there was an attack,” he says.
In the chaos of the moment, he keeps his cool.
“I started shouting to everyone:
There’s a shooting!
Everyone goes to the Expo
,” a part of the building from which those present could evacuate.
“I showed them where to go and helped everyone I could,” he said.
In a video circulating on social media, he can be seen running down corridors, shouting at a line of people following him.
“This way, this way, this way!”
Everyone goes that way.
Everyone there.
At the Expo, at the Expo…” he says, according to a translation by the Daily Mail.
According to independent media
The Insider
, three other teenagers, also working in the locker rooms that evening, helped those present to escape.
🛟 Fifteen-year-old schoolboy Islam Khalilov, who worked as a cloakroom attendant at Moscow's Crocus City Hall, saved over a 100 people by directing them to exit through the service areas.
Khalilov explained that he was instructed as an employee on how to act in an emergency… pic.twitter.com/ZXUqn2L1qN
— The Insider (@InsiderEng) March 24, 2024
Islam Khalilov said he evacuated last “so as not to leave anyone behind”.
“It is better to sacrifice yourself than to let a hundred people die,” he says.
He still explains that he was “very scared” during the entire episode.
“The terrorists were on the ground floor near the main entrance, above me,” says the teenager, “I saw one with a beard, who was wearing green camouflage clothing, with a rifle ".
He also explains that a man was killed right in front of him, an image he "can't stop thinking about."
Publicly praised for his courage
The teenager, a fan of the Spartak Moscow football team, also met the players on Sunday.
He received several gifts from them, including a personalized jersey and a club subscription.
The young man was especially publicly congratulated for his action, receiving a certificate for his dedication and courage from the Russian authorities.
Grand Mufti Ravil Gaynutdin, representative of Muslims in Russia, also declared to the Russian media Ria Novosti that he would offer Islam Khalilov, of Muslim faith, a medal for his merits, during a ceremony.
Also read: War in Ukraine: how Vladimir Putin exploits the Moscow attack
Friday's attack in the Russian capital is the deadliest on European soil claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.
Health services said Sunday evening that the number of injured had been reassessed at 182, of whom 101 were still hospitalized.
Investigators continued on Sunday to search the rubble of the building which was ravaged by a gigantic fire started by the attackers.
The police also found some 500 bullets, two Kalashnikov assault rifles and 28 magazines at the scene of the tragedy.
The four men arrested and accused of “terrorism” (they face life imprisonment) were placed in pre-trial detention.
In total, Russian authorities reported the arrest of eleven people, including four attackers, in connection with this attack.