The eighteenth first of September – Picture of the day – Kommersant
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In North Ossetia, a three-day memorial watch for those who died during the hostage-taking in Beslan in 2004 has ended. The republic is discussing the behavior of a number of local officials who left the City of Angels memorial before the end of the ceremony. The regional administration assures that the “Mothers of Beslan” asked officials about this – so that people would have to stand less in the heat. But representatives of the organization say that it was only about children.
The eighteenth anniversary of the Beslan terrorist attack began in exactly the same way as the mourning events of past years. On September 1, a symbolic school bell sounded at the destroyed gymnasium, which was turned into a memorial, where there were more than a thousand hostages. There were no speeches – the head of North Ossetia, Sergei Menyailo, quickly walked into the gym and laid flowers near a large wooden cross. He was accompanied by other officials. Following them, residents of the republic began to enter the hall – they left flowers, candles, water and toys. One girl became ill – she began to shake at the portraits of dead children. Doctors on duty in the gym gave her first aid. The girl repeated only one word: “Why?”.
On September 1, 2004, in Beslan, North Ossetia, 32 terrorists seized school No. 1, where a school assembly was taking place at that moment. 1128 people were taken hostage, most of them schoolchildren. On the very first day, the invaders shot all adult men and stopped giving food and water to the hostages. On September 2, the former President of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, after negotiations with the militants, led 26 people out of the school – mothers with infants. On the third day, the operational headquarters reported that an agreement had been reached with the terrorists on the transfer of water and food to the hostages, but they did not have time to do this. At 13:05, two bombs exploded in the gym and a spontaneous assault began, during which 334 hostages (of which 186 were children) and ten soldiers of the Alpha and Vympel special forces were killed. The victims of the attack still demand from the state hold an investigation and evaluate the actions of the officials who led the assault.
Women from the Mothers of Beslan Committee stood silently near the portraits of their children, accepting the condolences of people who approached them. Every now and then, in different parts of the gym, “Rukhsag ut” was heard – translated from Ossetian, “Kingdom to you of heaven.” Even after 18 years, people wept bitterly in the destroyed school.
On September 3, the main ceremony was held in the “City of Angels” – at the memorial cemetery of the victims of the terrorist attack, which in Ossetia is called “children’s”. Every year at exactly 14:00 there, to the sound of a metronome, the names of the dead are read out: children, parents, special forces soldiers and employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Usually, all republican officials stand at the memorial for these forty minutes, no matter what the weather, after which schoolchildren release balloons into the sky and lay flowers at the Tree of Sorrow monument. But this time everything happened differently – as soon as the names of the dead began to sound, the official delegation laid flowers and left the memorial in front of the people who were standing next to the graves of their loved ones.
Already after all the names were pronounced, the Beslan residents began to discuss what had happened in surprise. No one hid their indignation – people were sure that the officials were uncomfortable standing in the cemetery in the heat. Later, republican government officials said the ceremony was changed due to “a request from the Mothers of Beslan committee, who asked for it to be shortened so that people would not stand in the heat.”
However, the co-chair of the Mothers, Susanna Dudieva, told Kommersant that there really was talk of changing the ceremony, but no one was talking about officials leaving the memorial ahead of schedule.
“We asked to change the ceremony a little and release balloons into the sky not after reading out the names, but earlier. So that the children who hold them do not stand in the heat and do not faint, as it has happened more than once,” Susanna Dudieva told Kommersant. “But no one said that officials should also leave. It was their own choice.”
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