Wails of grief reverberated through the streets of Beslan on Sunday as its residents began burying the more than 300 people slaughtered in a 52-hour hostage crisis last week. (6-SEPTEMBER-04).

The standoff with a group of terrorists came to a violent and unexpected end
Friday when a giant explosion rocked the gymnasium at School No. 1, where many
of the more than 1,000 hostages were being held. The blast triggered a chaotic
10-hour battle that killed more than 300 people, many of them children.

Opened fire
front_3.jpgConflicting accounts from hostages suggest the bomb may have been accidentally
set off by a terrorist or by a bullet or grenade from outside the school. But,
in any case, the explosion took everybody by surprise.

Scores of hostages, many of them stripped to their underwear, began fleeing the
school, and the terrorists opened fire.

Shot in the back
“When the children ran, they began to shoot them in their backs,” said Aslanbek
Aslakhanov, President Vladimir Putin´s adviser on the Chechen Republic.

Many bodies piled next to the school Saturday bore no marks of violence, but
doctors said the injured and dead inside the Beslan hospital looked like
“porridge.”

Paralyzed with grief
Three powerful explosions rocked the school within 15 minutes of the first.
Relatives of the hostages listened in terror near the House of Culture, where
they had been waiting for news since the start of the standoff. Many were
paralyzed with grief.

Hundreds of ordinary North Ossetian men broke a thin police cordon to rush
toward the school. The resulting chaos in the battle zone made it nearly
impossible to fight.

Unprepared
“We didn´t know who was a rebel and who wasn´t,” said an OMON police officer,
his arm in a sling. “Some of the rebels got away by mixing into the crowd, one
who tried was torn to pieces by the people.”

Emergency rescuers arrived at the scene after 2 p.m., more than an hour after
the battle begun, indicating that federal forces had been unprepared for the
explosions.

Dressed in their best
Wild-eyed men in bloodstained clothes carried dozens of hostages through a maze
of gardens adjacent to the school as bullets flew overhead. Some hostages were
brought out already gray with death, others writhed in agony after limbs were
torn away in the explosions.

The suffering brought upon residents, who only Wednesday had been dressed in
their best to celebrate the start of the school year, was too much for many to
bear. One man stood by and cried repeatedly, “Little girl, no arm. Little girl,
no arm.”

Only at 10:40 p.m. did officials declare the crisis over.

Unclear
The cost of the carnage remained unclear Sunday. North Ossetian Health Minister
Alexander Soplevenko said at least 340 people were dead, while his deputy
Taimuraz Revazov said 324 were confirmed dead. North Ossetian government
spokesman Lev Dzugayev put the toll stood at 338, and later revised it down to
335.

More than 540 people were wounded, and 386 remained hospitalized late Sunday. A total of 184 of them are children.

Reports put the number of missing at anywhere from 191 to 260.

Law enforcement officials said 28 to 30 of the terrorists were dead and several
were in custody. It was unclear whether any had escaped.

Nationwide mourning
Hostages could not say how many terrorists there were, but said they saw at
least three women carrying pistols and wearing suicide-bomb belts. Authorities
said four women participated in the raid; one was detained and another was
apparently on the loose.

the Russian Federation declared Monday and Tuesday days of nationwide mourning, canceling
entertainment on television. In Beslan families and city authorities continued
burying the dead and holding memorial services.

You can also read “61 Hours of Horror” hour by hour describing the tragedy.

Condolences from the Human Rights House Network
Members of the Human Rights House Network expresses their sincere condolences to all persons who have suffered as a result of the brutal terrorist attack in Beslan.