Vladimir Putin declared Monday and Tuesday as national days of mourning for the hundreds of people who died in the hostage drama of School No. 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia.
Russian Ministries, a U.S. backed Christian aid organization working in the devastated region, said two of its Russian pastors who lost children in the tragedy would lead a group memorial service in Beslan on Tuesday, September 7.
Pastors Sergey and Taymuraz Totiev, two brothers, "had eight children" among the hostages. "Of the eight children, two are injured, one has died, and five remain unaccounted for," Russian Ministries said.
It was not immediately clear if the Totievs’ had managed to reach a nearby hospital to search for these children, after previous attempts reportedly failed as Russian security sealed off Beslan to hunt down alleged hostage takers.
But Russian medical workers have already warned those parents still missing children against keeping to much hope, as at least 335 people, half of them children, are officially known to have died during the bloodbath on Friday, September 3, that ended a near three-day siege of the Russian school.
MANY PEOPLE MISSING
However some medical workers have claimed they counted close to 400 victims, and many people are reportedly still unaccounted for.
Many victims can no longer be recognized because of the blaze that accompanied the gun battle between Russian troops storming the school and militants demanding independence for Chechnya, medical workers said.
During Tuesday’s memorial service in the small southern town of 30,000, American believers will hold a similar prayer service in the Russian Ministries headquarters at 1415 Hill Avenue in Wheaton, Illinois, from 8.30 AM local time, the organization said in a statement on its Internet website seen by BosNewsLife.
TERROR RELIEF FUND
Russian Ministries also said it established a Terror Relief Fund to give residents of Beslan "spiritual counseling," a rare commodity in the former Soviet Union where religion was discouraged during decades of Communism.
The preparations for the counseling came as a Reuters news agency reporter observed that the first groups of "grief-stricken mothers and fathers trudged through mud and rain to bury children in a town so small that everyone has a relative to grief for."
Many more funerals were expected, if victims will be found between the rubble that has been surrounded by bottles of water, flowers, and pictures of missing children.
"I feel terrible. I had a sister here who died. My other sister is in hospital. What can I feel? Do you hear people crying? That’s how I feel," said Beslan resident Rustan on the first of two days of national mourning, the Reuters news agency reported.
RUSSIA “DEFENSELESS”
"We are absolutely defenseless in the air, in the metro, in our own capital and outside it," Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent in the State Duma lower house, wrote in Nezavisimaya daily. "He won the contract (as president) to restore order in the country, to ensure security for people. We see today that the contract has been violated."
On Sunday, September 5, the Russian government seemed to suggest it had lied about the scale of the hostage crisis. Sergei Markov, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin, told state run Russian television it had been clear that the government had engaged in a clumsy cover-up. "Everybody understands they are lying," he said, according to The Washington Post news paper, which monitored the broadcast.
"Everybody can do the math and know there were more than 1,000 people inside the school." He said the school standoff had left Russian President Putin at a loss as to how to respond beyond the former KGB colonel’s instinct to strengthen police powers and centralize control over government institutions.
"They don’t know what to do," he said. "Vladimir Putin didn’t explain in detail what will be happening."
GOVERNMENT “COVER-UP”
Speaking before the Sunday night broadcast of the state television news program "Vesti," Markov said it had been clear that the government had engaged in a clumsy cover-up. "Everybody understands they are lying," he said. "Everybody can do the math and know there were more than 1,000 people inside the school."
The Kremlin sought to distance Putin from the deceptions through Sunday’s broadcast, in which the anchor chided "generals and the military and civilians" for failing to act "until the president gives them ideas of that to do." Pavlovsky, the political consultant, said Putin had given Russia’s political system "a no-confidence vote" for its handling of the crisis.
The Washington Post quoted political analysts as saying that such statements could never be aired unless the Kremlin directly ordered them. "Nothing happens on Rossiya television without the permission of the Kremlin," commentator Andrei Piontkovsky reportedly said.
NO SURPRISE
However the statement was no surprise, said Agnes Bos, the Budapest based Central and Eastern Europe reporter of the Russian Services of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Radio France International (RFI).
"President Putin wants to make sure that an upcoming demonstration against terror will not turn into a massive protest against him and his policies," she said.
The Moscow Times newspaper said the mass rally would be held in Moscow under the Kremlin walls on Tuesday, September 7, "in what could turn out to be the biggest public protest" against the terrorism that swept Russia in recent weeks.
TERRORISM WIDESPREAD
Beslan’s school hostage drama came shortly after at least 10 people died in a suicide attack on a Moscow metro station, and a week after some 90 people were killed when two airplanes exploded in mid air.
Opposition politicians have urged Putin to investigate the cause of terrorism, which they say can be linked to widespread resentment in Chechnya towards the Kremlin’s policies and Chechens’ struggle for independence from Russia.
Russian Ministries said it hopes that Christians around the world will support its Terror Relief Fund to help all victims of terrorism in Russia. "They need our prayers, and support," it said. Russian Ministries has said it will rush to the region to start operating the Terror Relief Fund. It has urged people to contribute to the Fund by calling (1)888.462.7639 or by giving online via website: http://www.russian-ministries.org. The Russian Ministries postal address was identified as Russian Ministries P.O. Box 496, Wheaton, IL 60189.
