More stories are emerging showing the utter depravity of the Islamists who perpetrated the Beslan massacre: Boy who begged for water was bayoneted.

AFTER more than 24 hours in the sweltering heat of the school gymnasium in Beslan, one of the boys trapped inside could not take it any longer.

Summoning up his courage, he approached a hostage taker with a bayonet fixed to his assault rifle and asked him for a drink. It was probably the worst error that he could have made.

“Instead of giving him water, he drove his bayonet through the boy’s body,” said Stanislav Tsarakhov, 10, another captive standing nearby. “I don’t know if he died.”

Details of the incident emerged as children who escaped the siege described how their captors had deliberately deprived them of food and water, repeatedly firing guns into the ceiling to try to silence them. “The hostage takers would hold their machineguns to your temple and said that if there was a lot of noise, they would shoot everyone,” said a girl, who gave her name only as Zalina. …

Also horrific was the role played by two “black widows” — Chechen women who turned to terrorism to avenge husbands and brothers killed during the Kremlin’s military clampdown on the breakaway republic.

According to accounts from some captives, the women blew themselves up in the first hours of the siege, killing several men near them. Last night no trace of their bodies had been found.