RUSSIA-BESLAN/ANNIVERSARY Memorial service in Beslan marks eleventh anniversary of Russia’s deadliest hostage siege

Record ID: 141735

  • Title: RUSSIA-BESLAN/ANNIVERSARY Memorial service in Beslan marks eleventh anniversary of Russia’s deadliest hostage siege
  • Date: 3rd September 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WITH WHITE BALLOONS SYMBOLISING VICTIMS OF ATTACK BALLOONS BEING RELEASED IN AIR BALLOONS IN AIR
  • Embargoed: 18th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABWUXY49SOQQWJA26O4CXWAQBD
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Hundreds attended the memorial ceremony for the victims of the deadly school siege in the Northern Caucasus town of Beslan on its 11th anniversary on Thursday (September 3).
    On September 1, 2004, dozens of masked gunmen seized School No. 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia, wired it with explosives and demanded an end to the war in neighbouring Chechnya. They held more than 1000 people hostage for three days withholding food and drinking water and killing many of the male hostages.
    In a bloody climax on September 3, an explosion in the sports hall prompted security forces to start the storm of the school. Three hundred thirty-three people, rescuers among them, were killed in the ensuing firefight - 186 of them children.
    Mourners attended the memorial ceremony at the bullet-scarred gymnasium - in which photographs of the dead lined the walls. After commemoration service was held people went to a local cemetery where victims of the attack were buried.
    Exactly at 13.05 local time, when an explosion in the sports hall prompted security forces to storm the school, pupils of local school released in the air 333 white balloons, symbolizing the souls of people killed at school on that day.
    More than 400 people started legal action against Russian authorities saying their basic rights were violated during the special operation. On July 2, 2015 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) agreed to consider their complaints. People who filed them said the authorities had known that gunmen had been preparing an attack but did not take appropriate steps to protect the citizens. They also said the hostage rescue operation was not well co-ordinated and special forces used types of weapons which posed extreme threat to people's lives.
    "We believe the court (The European Court of Human Rights) will look into the most important articles - the right to life and the right to impartial investigation and defence. All our requests are reflected in the Article 13 (of the European Convention on Human Rights): the fact that the terror attack was not prevented, unjustified use of heavy weaponry, denial of negotiations, untimely fire extinction and leaving people in danger," said Susanna Dudiyeva, the head of Beslan Mothers Committee.
    After the tragedy an official investigation has been launched. Alexander Torshin, who headed the parliamentary commission of inquiry, stressed that terrorists were mainly to blame for the killings of hostages. Negligence and incompetence of the Russian police and some officials contributed to the bloodbath, the commission concluded. But it declined to blame senior officials, and relatives of the killed said his criticism did not go far enough and that his probe was a waste of time if it did not lead to prosecutions of those in power.
    Two weeks after the attack the then leader of Chechen separatists, Shamil Basayev, who was on US, UN and EU terrorist lists, took responsibility. He was killed by special forces in 2006 in Russia's republic of Ingushetia.
    During the rescue mission around 30 gunmen were killed, the only person detained, Nurpashi Kulayev, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
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