seruriermarshal
09-06-2004, 08:18 PM
I want to live, pleads [terrorist] siege captive ("I swear by Allah I want to live.")
By Yana Dlugy
Beslan
September 7, 2004
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/09/06/07REBEL_ent-lead__200x218.jpg
A man arrested for involvement with the Chechen rebel group behind the school siege at Beslan, is shown on Russian TV. Picture:*******
Soldiers paraded a frightened captive begging for his life before TV cameras yesterday, as Russia began a period of official mourning for the hundreds of men, women and children killed in the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia.
The unidentified man, who was handcuffed, unshaven and dressed in a black shirt, was described as a member of the Chechen group that took more than 1000 people hostage. He was shown on State-run Channel One TV being guarded by masked commandos.
"This man directly took part in the attack, he is a member of the gang," said Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergei Fridinsky. "Tomorrow the court will sanction his arrest and he will be charged."
The man looked and spoke like a native of one of Russia's North Caucasus regions, which include Chechnya and neighbouring North Ossetia, where the siege occurred. His name and nationality have not been released. "I did not shoot. I swear by Allah I did not shoot," said the man, who looked scared. "I swear by Allah I want to live."
Russia, stunned by the deaths in the hostage drama, began an official period of national mourning as the town of Beslan continued to bury victims.
Dozens of people laid red carnations and bottles of water outside Middle School No 1. Its charred remains are a haunting memorial of the three-day standoff that ended with a massacre that was one of the most violent incidents in recent Russian history.
The water bottles symbolised how children were denied water and food by their captors, militants demanding independence for Chechnya.
Surviving students were allowed into the building for the first time yesterday, one girl laying a flower on the shattered windowsill of her old classroom, another wiping away tears with her fists as she gingerly stepped through a shattered hall.
The official death toll from Friday's carnage was 335 people, although a worker in the region's main morgue said that it had already received 394 bodies.
Some 377 people, including 197 children under 17, remained in local medical care, 55 of them in severe condition, North Ossetia's Deputy Health Minister Teymuraz Revazov said.
Another 27 children taken to hospitals in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don at the weekend also remained in a severe condition.
On Sunday it seemed everyone in Beslan, a town of 40,000 in the southern republic of North Ossetia, was walking around with photos of lost relatives or friends in their breast pockets, showing them to every person who passed by, hoping to locate their missing loved ones.
Meanwhile, coffins made a steady progress under grey clouds to a field freshly dug up by excavators for dozens of new graves as Beslan began to bury the victims.
"People come here to pay their respects and then many will go to another funeral," said one resident. "Attending a funeral is sacred here. This is nothing, there aren't many funerals today. Wait until tomorrow. The whole town will be paralysed."
"The whole world now knows this little town. It would have been better if no one knew where Beslan was," a man said softly during a funeral ceremony.
Amid a steady wail, the first dozen coffins were lowered into the ground and the Patriarch of Russia's Orthodox church, Alexy II, asked that a mass be held in every church across the country to remember the victims.
Amid a wave of attacks linked to Chechnya that have now killed hundreds in just over a week, Russian President Vladimir Putin - who rose to power on a law-and-order ticket - vowed to toughen security.
President Putin, despite tough talk and nearly half a decade of conflict in Chechnya, has failed to rein in separatist rebels or stop a spate of attacks across Russia. He faces the most serious challenge of his 41/2-year presidency, with the horrific end to the hostage-taking.
The drama, in which more than 1000 people were taken hostage, ended in nightmarish scenes described by the press as the "worst possible scenario", with half-naked, bloodied children fleeing the school and the mutilated bodies of the dead taken out on stretchers.
The assault that ended the siege was triggered by a series of explosions, during which the school's gymnasium roof collapsed, killing and maiming scores of people. Security forces alleged the attack had been planned weeks in advance, with militants posing as builders and stashing explosives in the school.
Survivors told of the terror inside the gymnasium, where they were forced to drink their own urine to avoid dehydration and to strip down to their underwear to cope with the heat.
Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police has offered to send a team of victim identification investigators and family counsellors to help Russian authorities. AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said his officers could be in place within days.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer formally offered the AFP's services to the Russian government yesterday and was awaiting a response. Mr Keelty said AFP officers had built up expertise in victim identification and counselling families after the 2002 Bali bombings.
Friday's scenes in North Ossetia were a reminder of a botched rescue attempt of hostages in a Moscow theatre in October 2002 in which 129 hostages were killed - most of them when Russian rescuers who stormed the building pumped a toxic gas into the theatre.
- agencies
By Yana Dlugy
Beslan
September 7, 2004
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/09/06/07REBEL_ent-lead__200x218.jpg
A man arrested for involvement with the Chechen rebel group behind the school siege at Beslan, is shown on Russian TV. Picture:*******
Soldiers paraded a frightened captive begging for his life before TV cameras yesterday, as Russia began a period of official mourning for the hundreds of men, women and children killed in the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia.
The unidentified man, who was handcuffed, unshaven and dressed in a black shirt, was described as a member of the Chechen group that took more than 1000 people hostage. He was shown on State-run Channel One TV being guarded by masked commandos.
"This man directly took part in the attack, he is a member of the gang," said Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergei Fridinsky. "Tomorrow the court will sanction his arrest and he will be charged."
The man looked and spoke like a native of one of Russia's North Caucasus regions, which include Chechnya and neighbouring North Ossetia, where the siege occurred. His name and nationality have not been released. "I did not shoot. I swear by Allah I did not shoot," said the man, who looked scared. "I swear by Allah I want to live."
Russia, stunned by the deaths in the hostage drama, began an official period of national mourning as the town of Beslan continued to bury victims.
Dozens of people laid red carnations and bottles of water outside Middle School No 1. Its charred remains are a haunting memorial of the three-day standoff that ended with a massacre that was one of the most violent incidents in recent Russian history.
The water bottles symbolised how children were denied water and food by their captors, militants demanding independence for Chechnya.
Surviving students were allowed into the building for the first time yesterday, one girl laying a flower on the shattered windowsill of her old classroom, another wiping away tears with her fists as she gingerly stepped through a shattered hall.
The official death toll from Friday's carnage was 335 people, although a worker in the region's main morgue said that it had already received 394 bodies.
Some 377 people, including 197 children under 17, remained in local medical care, 55 of them in severe condition, North Ossetia's Deputy Health Minister Teymuraz Revazov said.
Another 27 children taken to hospitals in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don at the weekend also remained in a severe condition.
On Sunday it seemed everyone in Beslan, a town of 40,000 in the southern republic of North Ossetia, was walking around with photos of lost relatives or friends in their breast pockets, showing them to every person who passed by, hoping to locate their missing loved ones.
Meanwhile, coffins made a steady progress under grey clouds to a field freshly dug up by excavators for dozens of new graves as Beslan began to bury the victims.
"People come here to pay their respects and then many will go to another funeral," said one resident. "Attending a funeral is sacred here. This is nothing, there aren't many funerals today. Wait until tomorrow. The whole town will be paralysed."
"The whole world now knows this little town. It would have been better if no one knew where Beslan was," a man said softly during a funeral ceremony.
Amid a steady wail, the first dozen coffins were lowered into the ground and the Patriarch of Russia's Orthodox church, Alexy II, asked that a mass be held in every church across the country to remember the victims.
Amid a wave of attacks linked to Chechnya that have now killed hundreds in just over a week, Russian President Vladimir Putin - who rose to power on a law-and-order ticket - vowed to toughen security.
President Putin, despite tough talk and nearly half a decade of conflict in Chechnya, has failed to rein in separatist rebels or stop a spate of attacks across Russia. He faces the most serious challenge of his 41/2-year presidency, with the horrific end to the hostage-taking.
The drama, in which more than 1000 people were taken hostage, ended in nightmarish scenes described by the press as the "worst possible scenario", with half-naked, bloodied children fleeing the school and the mutilated bodies of the dead taken out on stretchers.
The assault that ended the siege was triggered by a series of explosions, during which the school's gymnasium roof collapsed, killing and maiming scores of people. Security forces alleged the attack had been planned weeks in advance, with militants posing as builders and stashing explosives in the school.
Survivors told of the terror inside the gymnasium, where they were forced to drink their own urine to avoid dehydration and to strip down to their underwear to cope with the heat.
Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police has offered to send a team of victim identification investigators and family counsellors to help Russian authorities. AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said his officers could be in place within days.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer formally offered the AFP's services to the Russian government yesterday and was awaiting a response. Mr Keelty said AFP officers had built up expertise in victim identification and counselling families after the 2002 Bali bombings.
Friday's scenes in North Ossetia were a reminder of a botched rescue attempt of hostages in a Moscow theatre in October 2002 in which 129 hostages were killed - most of them when Russian rescuers who stormed the building pumped a toxic gas into the theatre.
- agencies