On the evening of October 27, 1999, several short-range ballistic missiles hit a crowded outdoor market in central Grozny, killing or wounding hundreds of people, mostly civilians. About an hour after the attack, Ependiyev went to the scene to cover the carnage for his paper. Nevertheless, as he was leaving the site, a new round of Scud missiles fell about 200 meters from the bazaar. Ependiyev suffered severe shrapnel wounds and died in a Grozny hospital the next morning.[2] (According to other sources, he died two days later.[3])