as Russian officials confirmed that up to 350 people, nearly half of them children, had died in a hostage drama at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, which ended after long gun battles between Russian forces and militants demanding independence for neighboring Chechnya.
The death toll, which was much higher than previously admitted by the Kremlin, also included 26 militants who were reportedly killed by Russian Special Forces, said Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky.
As the sun rose over the still smoldering school complex, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had visited overcrowded hospitals in Beslan, warned on national television that "this was not an isolated act of terrorism" against power structures, but "international terrorism against Russia."
"This is a full scale war," stressed a somber looking Putin after seeing some of the estimated 542 people, including 336 children, who were still hospitalized Saturday, September 4, in the Southern Russian town of 30,000 people.
Television footage showed earlier how he visited victims, stopping to stroke the head of one injured child and the arm of the school principal. Six badly wounded children, including a two-year-old, were flown to Moscow for treatment, The Associated Press (AP) news agency quoted the Emergency Situations Ministry as saying. Putin also ordered the region’s borders closed saying forces still searched for everyone connected with the attack.
"NEW APPROACH"
In his televised speech, which was likely to worry some international observers, Putin warned that it was time for "a new approach" as in his words "the transition from the Soviet Union" to current Russia "had shown weakness." Russian and Western commentators have criticized Putin for being autocratic, and said the Kremlin had rarely been seen in public and talking to journalists during most of the hostage crisis.
Some North Ossetians complained that his visit to Beslan was too little, too late. "Why didn’t he come earlier?…Why did he come in the middle of the night?" said Irina Volgokova, 33, whose close friend and the friend’s daughter were missing.
"He is the head of our country. He should answer for this before the people," she told AP.
NO NEGOTIATIONS
President Putin had made clear however that he did not want to "negotiate with terrorists," who Russian officials said included at least 10 people of Arab descent. There was also concern among Christian aid workers about the apparent lack of organization in the troubled town. "From what we are hearing, the people are roaming the streets," said Sergey Rakhuba, vice-president of the Christian mission organization Russian Ministries, whose pastors lost probably six children in the hostage crisis.
“I had the privilege of experiencing the wonderful Christian hospitality of (pastors) Sergey and Taymuraz Totiev and their families," he said in a statement to BosNewsLife. "Now they still wait and wonder what has happened to their children. Eight of their twelve children were held captive, two of the eight (Madena, a girl, and Azum, a boy) are known to be in hospital. The fate of the remaining six is unknown at this time."
SEARCH CONTINUES
Russian Ministries Regional Director Gennady Terkun, who witnessed the hostage crisis in Beslan, told BosNewsLife late Friday, September 3, that hope to find them alive was fading. "It was (reported) that Sergey Totiev’s 9-year-old daughter, Anna, was killed and found in the morgue. The remaining five Totiev children (or six if Anna was misidentified) are still missing," he said.
Dozens of other Christian children, who recently visited Russian Ministries summer camps "where they learned about Jesus," were also believed to have died in the gun battles, the organization said. For survivors "spiritual counseling" is more needed than ever, added Russian Ministries, which has set up the Terror Relief Fund to deal with that task. It will also support victims of other terrorist attacks.
Counseling is a relative new phenomena in Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union, where religion and seeking spiritual help was discouraged during decades of Communism. "We must stand with these people in prayer," said Russian Ministries’ Rakhuba. "(We must) do all we can to help them in this, their hour of need."
BAD DREAMS
It comes amid concern among aid workers about the dreams of children, who saw militants blowing themselves up as well as dead bodies lying nearby. Some children as young as six were seen naked or half naked wandering on the streets in a state of shock, between armored vehicles of Russian forces.
Blood covered children cried for water or an apple, or just for attention from their parents, if they were still alive. Alla Gadieyeva, a 24-year-old hostage who was seized with her son and mother — all three were among the survivors — said the captors laughed when she asked them for water for her mother.
"When children began to faint, they laughed," Gadieyeva told AP. "They were totally indifferent." Two emergency services workers were killed and three wounded during the chaos, Interfax reported. More than 10 special services officers were killed, the news agency said.
PARENTS FRUSTRATED
Russian television has so far been careful not to criticize the military, although parents have expressed frustration about the military action. Military officials have said the rescue operation was not planned but provoked after militants began shooting at escaping children.
Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the war-torn region in the past decade provoked Russian rescue operations that led to many deaths. The seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002 ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.
In 1995 — during the first of two wars in Chechnya in the past decade — rebels led by guerrilla commander Shamil Basayev seized a hospital in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk, taking some 2,000 people hostage, several news reports recalled. The six-day standoff ended with a fierce Russian assault, and some 100 people died.
Russian Ministries 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.
