Fifteen Years After Beslan Tragedy, Emotions Still Run High

On September 3, 2004, the Beslan school massacre ended in tragedy with the deaths of approximately 344 people, mostly teachers and children. An excerpt from the article:

"It started 15 years ago as a hostage taking in a small town in southern Russia. It ended three days later in bloodshed that left hundreds dead, the majority of them children, in one of the worst terror attacks in Russian history.

Some three dozen Chechen militants took more than 1,200 people hostage at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, on September 1, 2004. The drama ended days later after Russian forces stormed the school. The standoff and resulting battle saw 334 people killed, 186 of whom were children.

"I was lining the students up [to address them]. When I took the microphone, the first shots rang out. We all fled into the hall," recalls Yelena Ganiyeva, then a teacher and now the principal at Beslan School No. 1.

The siege began on the first day of classes, with many parents accompanying their kids to School No. 1.

The militants launched their raid on the school shortly after 9 a.m. local time, forced all hostages into an overcrowded gym, and executed a number of teachers and parents. The hostage takers reportedly wore suicide belts, and bombs were strapped to the basketball nets in the gymnasium.

The standoff continued until September 3, when Russian security forces stormed the school with the support of heavy weaponry, including tank fire and grenade launchers.

Russian forces went in after two blasts were heard in the school and a blaze broke out in the gymnasium where most of the hostages were held.

To this day it remains unclear who triggered the explosions.

The official line was that the militants set off the first explosion and that grenades fired by Russian troops could not have sparked the fire.

But an independent investigation in 2006 by explosives expert Yury Savelyev contradicted that assertion. "We have known for a long time that security services were to blame for killing many of the hostages. But the Prosecutor-General's Office flatly refuses to listen to the testimony of eyewitnesses who saw it."

The disastrous outcome remains a black mark on the presidency of Vladimir Putin, who was in his first term at the time and will not attend any of the planned commemorative ceremonies for the 15th anniversary."