Word: beslan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...children who answered the questionnaire are all dead. The record books the teachers are arranging on the shelves have bullet holes in them. And most of the teachers are survivors of the Beslan hostage siege last September, when more than 1,100 people?many of them children?were held by terrorists loyal to Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev. At least 331 people died, including 186 children, in a chaotic rescue operation during which Russian security forces hit the school with incendiary grenades and tank shells. The fire brigade waited two hours before putting out the blaze that engulfed the gymnasium...
...scene at the new school is about as close to normal as you get in Beslan. A year on, the small North Ossetian town remains deeply wounded?and bitterly divided. Survivors are still struggling with grief and anger, physical and psychological pain. Vitriolic disputes have broken out between survivors and the families of those who died, with allegations of cowardice sprayed on walls and lives ruined by whispering campaigns. Lidia Tsaliyeva, the school's 73-year-old principal, has been a main target. Fellow hostages say she played a heroic role during the ordeal, but others have made her into...
...shock waves from Beslan are still felt far beyond the town. Many Russians were profoundly shaken by the television footage of dead and terribly injured children. And the Kremlin's failure to protect its people was another blow to President Vladimir Putin's image as a tough, take-charge leader. For Stanislav Kesayev, deputy speaker of the North Ossetian regional parliament and a critic of the Kremlin's handling of Beslan, the chaos surrounding the school seizure and the botched rescue attempt is symptomatic of the way Russian officials treat ordinary people as "cattle." "I teach law," says Kesayev...
...escape. One young girl recently burst into tears when she saw the old school from a distance. Many have lingering pain, both physical and psychological. Vika Kallagova, 14, still drops by the hospital occasionally for treatment of shrapnel wounds that have not fully healed. Like many children in Beslan, Vika?who escaped from the school with her 9-year-old sister, Olya?is introverted and reticent. "I never want to talk to a psychiatrist again," she says...
...Critics of the government investigations claim that officials?both from the Kremlin and Beslan?are saying as little as possible in the hope that the controversy over the botched rescue will fade away. A federal commission of inquiry, composed of members of both houses of the Russian parliament, said last September they would need six months to complete their work. The inquiry is still limping along, with little sign that it will be finished in the near future. Prosecutors investigating the case still have not been able to identify the bodies of 11 of the 31 terrorists who died...