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   Russia mourns siege victims

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Topic: Russia mourns siege victims (Read 119 times)

Rhune
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Russia mourns siege victims
« on: Sep 5^th, 2004, 1:19pm »

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Russia mourns siege victims
Report: Top local officials resigns over crisis
Sunday, September 5, 2004 Posted: 12:42 PM EDT (1642 GMT)

BESLAN, Russia (CNN) -- Mourners were holding the first funerals Sunday for nearly 340 hostages killed in Russia's school siege as a top local official reportedly resigned over the crisis.

President Vladimir Putin, who made a surprising admission on national television of Russian weakness in the face of terrorists, declared two national days of mourning.

Putin said the fall of the Soviet Union had left the country unable to react to attacks and promised to reform security forces.

"We must create a much more effective system of security," he said. "We couldn't adequately react. ... We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten." (Full story)

At least 338 hostages, including 156 children, were killed after terrorists seized a school building and held more than 1,000 students and adults hostage in the southern town of Beslan. At least 10 Russian special forces also were killed.

More than 700 people were injured, and authorities expect the death toll to rise as 447 people remain in area hospitals, 58 in very serious condition, officials said.

About half of those in hospitals are children. Eleven children and six others who were severely wounded or burned have been flown to Moscow hospitals.

The Russian government has requested medical supplies from the United States and other countries, an official with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said.

The United States is providing $50,000 in emergency assistance funds, the largest amount that can be sent immediately under U.S. law, a U.S. official said. The money will be used by relief agencies, primarily the Russian Red Cross.

Also, an American plane is expected to arrive Monday morning in Vladikavkaz, a major city near Beslan, with specialized medical equipment, including burn beds and monitoring equipment.

Authorities said 191 people remain unaccounted for.

Security forces have detained three suspects and have been interrogating them for information on the attacks, Interfax quoted local authorities as saying.

The interior minister of North Ossetia, Kazbek Dzantiyev, submitted his resignation Sunday, saying he could not remain in office after the attack, Interfax and Itar-Tass reported.

"After what happened in Beslan, I don't have the right to occupy this post as an officer and as a man," the Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said that based on interviews with surviving hostages, 32 terrorists attacked the school. Authorities have found the bodies of 30 of them.

Fridinsky did not give individual identities but described them as an international group that included Chechens, Kazaks and Arabs.

Earlier reports said 10 of the dead attackers were from Arab countries.

Chechens have been affiliated with the al Qaeda terror network, and an Arab connection suggests a further link between the Chechen rebel movement and international terrorism.

Chechen rebels have been fighting Russian troops for a decade, seeking independence.

Itar-Tass quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying the school assault was financed by Abu Omar As-Seyf, an Arab who allegedly represents al Qaeda in Chechnya, and directed by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, The Associated Press reported.

Valery Andreyev, local head of the FSB security service, was quoted by Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy as saying the militants may have received help from local police, possibly because they were coerced, Reuters reported.

A top Chechen figure said there was "no justification" for the school siege and other recent terrorist attacks perpetrated by Chechens, but he called them "unavoidable" because of Russia's policies.

Aslan Maskhadov, a rebel leader and former president of Chechnya, issued the statement Sunday. He has steadily become more sidelined in recent times by more radical leaders in the Chechen fight for a breakaway Muslim republic. (Full story)

'My son is missing'
The two-day siege ended amid explosions and intense gunfire after Russian troops stormed the school Friday and fought with the hostage-takers for hours.

North Ossetia government spokesman Lev Dzugayev said most of the dead were killed when a bomb exploded in the gymnasium. Of those who died from gunshot wounds, most were shot in the back as they fled the gymnasium, he said.

Russian state TV reported that 20 hostages were shot in the first two days of the hostage crisis.

Putin, who visited the wounded in Beslan on Saturday, declared Monday and Tuesday national days of mourning.

"Russia is grieving with the people of North Ossetia," he said. "Nobody wanted to use force."

"One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to stoke ethnic hatred, to blow up the whole of our North Caucasus."

His comments came amid criticism from people in Beslan over the handling of the hostage crisis by security forces.

On Sunday, dozens of men in Beslan dug graves in a large field next to the town cemetery as surveyors marked out new plots with wooden stakes and string, AP said.

Victims were being buried in funerals beginning Sunday. Wailing could be heard from the town's homes.

As a light rain fell, funeral processions snaked through the streets on the way to the cemetery. Weeping mourners placed flowers and wreaths at the graves, including one where two sisters were being laid to rest together. (Full story)

With nearly 200 people unaccounted for, distraught parents and relatives were scanning hand-written lists and checking hospitals and morgues in a search for their loved ones.

"My son is missing," Reuters quoted Albert Adykhayev as telling NTV television. "He is too young to say who he is. I just don't know on what lists and under what name he will appear." His son is 3.

Hospital doctors tried to help by displaying photographs of unidentified patients, children too small or too shocked to give their names.

Putin ordered the borders of North Ossetia closed as security forces hunted for accomplices in the restive northern Caucasus region.

Investigators were looking at the possibility the hostage-takers may have brought their weapons and explosives into the school well before the siege.

Interfax quoted an unnamed regional security officer as saying the weapons had been hidden under the floor during summer construction work.

An escaped hostage said she recognized some of the terrorists as having done the construction work, Ekho Moskvy radio reported.

The standoff that began early Wednesday ended after Russian officials, working under a cease-fire agreement, tried to collect bodies of those killed earlier.

There was an explosion, hostages fled, and hostage-takers opened fire on the children and rescue workers. Russian troops, who had not planned to storm the building, returned fire.

The standoff followed a bloody week in Russia. A female suicide bomber killed nine people outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday. Two suspected Chechen female suicide bombers downed two airliners on August 24, killing all 89 people aboard the planes.

Russian officials have said the new wave of attacks is an attempt at revenge for last weekend's elections in Chechnya in which a Kremlin-backed candidate won the presidency.

CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty and Correspondent Ryan Chilcote in Beslan and contributed to this report

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Copyright 2004 CNN.

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sweetmisery
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Re: Russia mourns siege victims
« Reply #1 on: Sep 5^th, 2004, 1:39pm »

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I feel bad. Its really a disaster/tragedy for something like that to happen, with so many casualties and people hurt!

And US is there e-mail quick to send help! Cool

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Rupey
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Re: Russia mourns siege victims
« Reply #2 on: Sep 5^th, 2004, 5:50pm »

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This is sad beyond belief. So many innocent children. So many grieving families. Embarassed

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