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| Caucasus |
| Beslan death toll now at 400 |
| 2004-09-05 |
| Mothers with tears flowing down their faces and fathers trying to hide their emotions buried their children and relatives Sunday as the death toll from Russia's worst ever hostage crisis climbed towards 400. Dozens of well-wishers laid red carnations and plastic bottles of water at the wreckage of School Number One, its charred remains a haunting memory to a three-day standoff that ended with some of the most violent scenes in modern Russian history. The water bottles were a stark symbol of how the children were left without water or food by captors who were demanding independence for separatist Chechnya. "Why? What for? What for?" wept one woman over one of two coffins set under a blue tarp in a courtyard in this town of 40,000, where seemingly everyone knew someone who was affected by the attacks. "A terrorist act is when you blow up something and people die. But our children were executed," said another. Under gray skies, the men stood silently on the sidelines according to local tradition and prepared huge pots over a wood fire for the solemn post-burial meal. "The whole world now knows this little town. It would have been better if no one knew where Beslan was," the man said softly. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |