- Flags were flying at half-mast across Russia today as
two days of national mourning began for more than 330 people who died in
the Beslan school siege.
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- Some 120 funerals were taking place in the town, in North
Ossetia in the south of the country, and there will be many more over the
coming days for the victims of the hostage crisis, around half of whom
were children.
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- The wails of grieving women resounded from courtyards
where families made ritual meals and from a football field-sized plot of
land next to the cemetery. Trains passing the cemetery stopped and blew
their horns in a show of respect.
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- Most people in Beslan, which has a population of around
30,000, had a relative, friend or neighbour killed or wounded at Middle
School No 1, where more than 30 militants took more than 1,000 children
and adults hostage last Wednesday.
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- Among the first laid to rest were Zinaida Kudziyeva,
42, and her 10-year-old daughter, Madina Tomayeva. Relatives said they
had both stood up in an attempt to flee when the first explosions went
off as the siege reached a bloody end on Friday. They found themselves
in the line of fire between the militants and Russian forces.
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- "They could not run away. They didn't have time,"
said Irakly Khosulev, a relative from the nearby city of Vladikavkaz. "Someone
should answer for this."
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- There was a security cordon around the cemetery, where
a high-level government delegation that included the mayor of Moscow, Yuri
Luzhkov, stood on a stage draped in red and black and addressed a small
crowd through loudspeakers.
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- One woman approached and shouted angrily at officials
to turn off the loudspeakers. A group of men jostled her and tried to speak
with her away from the stage.
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- Criticism of the government response to the tragedy was
mounting, with even Russian state television attacking officials for understating
the magnitude of the crisis, for their slowness to admit that previous
recent attacks were carried out by terrorists, and for their apparent paralysis.
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- The region's top police officer, Kazbek Dzantiyev, tendered
his resignation yesterday morning as questions continued to be asked about
how the siege was brought to a chaotic end. "After what happened in
Beslan, I don't have the right to occupy this post as an officer and a
man," he said.
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- Muradi Nartikoyev, one of the Beslan town elders officiating
at mourning ceremonies, said the whole regional government should step
down. "If they had fulfilled their duty this would not have been possible,"
he said.
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- Meanwhile, two politicians Irina Khakamada, a liberal,
and Sergei Glazyev, a nationalist, called separately for an independent
investigation into the hostage crisis, the Interfax news agency reported.
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- As tensions remained high, Reuters reported that a Russian
military helicopter crashed into a mountain in bad weather yesterday in
the Ingushetia region, near the border with Chechnya, killing two of its
three-person crew.
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- Questions were still being asked about what exactly happened
at the school but the general view was that many people were killed when
militants triggered a wave of explosions on Friday, possibly by accident.
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- The blasts came as emergency workers entered the school
courtyard to collect the bodies of people killed in an initial raid.
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- The explosions tore through the roof of the school gymnasium,
where most hostages were being held. As debris rained down and survivors
attempted to escape, the militants opened fire.
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- Today the uncertainty went on for the families of those
still missing. The ITAR-Tass news agency cited a Beslan official as saying
176 children were still missing.
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- The health ministry said only 207 of the dead had been
formally identified. Some 700 people were injured, of whom 386, including
184 children, remained in hospital; 58 people were said to be in a critical
condition.
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- Russia's deputy prosecutor, Sergei Fridinsky, reportedly
confirmed that one man had been charged with "personal participation"
in the siege.
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- Although 35 hostage-takers were believed to have been
killed in 10 hours of fighting that followed the end of the siege, Mr Fridinsky
said he thought 32 terrorists had been involved and that two remained alive
and in custody.
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- Mr Fridinsky said the man charged was part of the hostage-taking
gang. He was seen on Russian television yesterday being led into a cell
at gunpoint by two masked men in military uniforms.
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- The suspect, who was not named, shouted at a cameraman
in Russian: "By Allah, I have not shot. By Allah, I have not killed
... I was sorry for them [the children]. I myself have children."
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- In Scotland, Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Queen, the
Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales joined a church service yesterday
to pray for the victims.
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- In other developments today, the editor of the Russian
newspaper Izvestia has been fired over its coverage of the Beslan hostage
tragedy, according to local reports.
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- Editor fired over siege coverage
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- The Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, has asked
Mr Putin to release Georgian television camera crew members who were arrested
in Beslan on Friday as they were covering the school hostage crisis.
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- A US-based charity created to help victims of the Moscow
theatre siege carried out by Chechen militants two years ago, in which
129 people died, has been reactivated and money has started to pour in.
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- And it is thought that Australian police, who built up
expertise in victim identification and grief counselling after the Bali
bombing, could head to Russia this week to offer assistance.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK/russia/article/0,2763,1298245,00.html
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