VLADIKAVKAZ, September 4. /TASS/. Around 13,000 people attended three-day mourning events held in Russia’s Caucasus region of North Ossetia to mark the 20th anniversary of the Beslan school siege that claimed the lives of 334 people, most of them children, the region’s interior ministry told TASS.
"Over the past three days, around 13,000 people visited the school and the City of Angels cemetery," the ministry said.
In 2004, terrorists held more than 1,200 people hostage without food and water for three days in Beslan’s School No.1. In memory of these tragic events, the school held a religious service. At 1.05 p.m. Moscow time - the time when the first blast occurred - bells rang twice, and a minute of silence was observed. Portraits of victims have been put on display in the school’s gym, where the hostages were held by their captors.
On Tuesday afternoon, a solemn procession marched from School No.1 to the City of Angels cemetery, where all the victims are buried. Their names were read out, accompanied by the ticking of a metronome. A total of 334 white balloons were launched into the sky.
Participants also laid flowers at the Tree of Sorrow and at the monument to officers of the Alfa and Vympel special forces killed during the assault.
On the evening of September 3, candles were lit in the schoolyard, and a requiem concert began.
The region’s law-enforcement and security agencies have been on high alert on September 1-3. Ambulance vehicles were dispatched near the school and the cemetery.
The memorial events were attended by North Ossetia head Sergey Menyailo, South Ossetian President Alan Gagloyev, senator Taimuraz Mamsurov, as well as other officials, public figures and community leaders.
The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan massacre) started on September 1, 2004, when a gang of 30 terrorists seized Beslan’s school No. 1 on the first day of the academic year during a gala ceremony in the yard. The terrorists forced more than one thousand hostages, including small kids, into the school’s gym and kept them there for three days without food and water. The operation to free the hostages began on September 3.
The tragedy claimed 334 lives. Of those killed 318 were hostages, including 186 children. Ten commandoes, two emergencies ministry specialists and 15 police were killed and another 810 hostages, commandoes, police and troops were injured.
A total of 126 former hostages, including 70 children, were permanently disabled, and many of them are still undergoing rehabilitation.
President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the Mothers of Beslan organization described the events in Beslan as a "horrific terrorist attack" that "will certainly remain an unhealing wound in the historical memory of Russia.".