Russians mark 5 years since Beslan school tragedy

[September 01, 2009]  BESLAN, Russia (AP) -- Wailing mothers and anguished relatives on Tuesday marked the fifth anniversary of Russia's worst terrorist attack, mourning the hundreds killed at Beslan's School No. 1 and haunted by questions over the botched rescue attempt.

Scores of people filed through the ravaged shell of the school's gymnasium, lighting candles, laying carnations and offering bottles of water to the victims of the 2004 attack, which saw 32 heavily armed militants hold more than 1,000 people hostage for nearly three days.

"I can't go on, I can't do it," cried one woman, who staggered about the gym wailing in Russian and the local Ossetian.

The ordeal ended on Sept. 3, 2004, in a disastrous rescue attempt that resulted in the deaths of 334 people, more than half of them children, in the North Caucasus town.

The Beslan attack shook Russia deeply and prompted then-President Vladimir Putin to push through sweeping changes to the country's electoral system, tightening the Kremlin's grip on power.

A recent upsurge in violence across Russia's North Caucasus, however has undermined the Kremlin's claims it is bringing stability to the region. Underscoring the problem authorities face, a passer-by was killed and 13 people injured Tuesday when a man detonated explosives in a car at a traffic police post in nearby Dagestan.

In the Beslan gymnasium, mothers and grandmothers grasped desperately at photographs of their lost children, which hung from walls below charred timbers and the remains of two basketball hoops. Many lit candles and whispered Orthodox prayers. Others placed bottled water at the base of the walls -- a reference to the fact that the hostages went three days without food or water. Many were forced to drink their own urine during the siege.

Relatives and prominent human rights activists say the Sept. 3 rescue operation went horribly awry, with many victims dying from crossfire, accidental explosions and possibly even heavy weaponry such as flame-throwers wielded by federal forces.

Officials say the explosion that sparked the maelstrom on the third day were set off accidentally by the terrorists themselves. But relatives of the dead say government snipers may have killed one of the terrorists holding a bomb trigger, setting off a cascade of violence.

"Five years have passed and no one has been punished!" yelled Matras Tsallgov, whose brother and nephew died in the attack.

The only attacker known to have survived, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, was sentenced to life in prison in 2006.

[Associated Press; By MIKE ECKEL]

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