ROME, February 6. /TASS/. San Marino’s Minister of Labor Alessandro Bevitori has officially nominated the Mothers of Beslan public organization for the Nobel Peace Prize, Ennio Bordato, Italian activist and president of the charitable association "Help Us Save Children," told TASS.
Bordato explained that under the regulations, a candidate needs to be nominated by an elected politician or a Nobel prize winner.
"Beslan Mayor Khariton Tatrov has recently visited San Marino as part of a campaign in support of the nomination. He met with San Marino’s senior officials," Bordato said. Tatrov also made a trip to the Italian city of Bologna, where he secured support from the archdiocese led by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference. The mayor invited Zuppi to visit Beslan.
Beslan and San Marino have maintained ties for years. The enclave was the first to erect a monument to the victims of the September 2004 terrorist attack on Beslan’s School Number 1, which killed 314 people, including 186 children. The bronze sculpture of a child was based on the photo of one of the kids that had been wounded in the attack. Last year, a copy of the San Marino monument was unveiled in Beslan.
The "Help Us Save Children" association, founded over 20 years ago, was one of the first foreign organizations that offered assistance to those affected by the terrorist attack. Bordato was later made an honorary citizen of Beslan and has remained in contact with the city ever since. A Mothers of Beslan delegation visited the Apennines in April 2023, with San Marino being the first stop of the trip.
The Mothers of Beslan organization was created in 2005 to assist with an investigation into the terrorist attack. Now, it works to preserve the memory of the victims and rescuers, address social security problems facing those who suffered from the attack, and resolve child safety issues, particularly through people-to-people diplomacy.
Terrorists seized a Beslan school in 2004, taking over 1,200 people hostage. As many as 334 people lost their lives in the siege or died later of wounds, including 186 children. A total of 126 former hostages (70 of them children) became disabled, and many of them still need rehabilitation.