A Step At A Time

Jeremy Page reports from Beslan that victims of last September's siege have been found in a rubbish dump:

At first it looked like any other rubbish dump — a few clothes, some old shoes, broken tables and chairs. But when residents of Beslan looked closer at the junk a mile outside their town this week, they made out clumps of hair and shreds of dried skin.

In a flash it dawned on them: Russian authorities had hurriedly cleared out Middle School No 1 after the siege ended on September 3 last year and dumped everything here in an abandoned quarry.

Within an hour of Tuesday’s discovery, relatives of the 331 victims descended on the grim pile to search for traces of their loved ones.

“First they let those bandits kill our children, then they let the dogs eat their bodies,” said Susanna Dudiyeva, head of the Committee of Beslan Mothers, who lost her 12-year-old son in the siege. “Why did they not tell us about it?” she asked The Times. “It should have been examined, then buried or burnt.”

The find is just the latest example of the insensitivity and incompetence with which federal and local authorities handled the terrorist siege and its aftermath. Yet, six months on, no senior official — in Moscow or North Ossetia — has resigned or been sacked.

The Government says that it is waiting for the results of an official investigation, expected next month. But victims’ relatives say that their patience has run out. In January a group of victims’ mothers blocked a major highway for three days, demanding the resignation of President Dzasokhov, the Kremlin-backed leader of North Ossetia. Last week they took their campaign to Moscow, where they issued an open letter to President Putin, again calling for Mr Dzasokhov’s resignation. Leading the campaign are two groups — the Committee of Beslan Mothers and the Committee of Beslan Teachers — founded in the siege’s aftermath to share grief and co-ordinate aid.

In the past two months they have become increasingly politicised, joining forces with families of victims of other terrorist attacks to try to change the culture of unaccountability that pervades the Government.

Not only do they blame Mr Dzasokhov for failing to prevent the 31 Chechen militants from taking 1,100 people hostage, they are still enraged that his spokesman repeatedly lied when he said that there were only 354 hostages and that they were being given food and water. “The Ossetian people have only one future under this President — the cemetery,” said Vissarion Aseyev, a deputy in the North Ossetian parliament who helps to run the Committee of Beslan Teachers. Like many Beslan residents he fears that Mr Dzasokhov will seek Kremlin approval to serve another term or install a successor of his choice. Either way North Ossetians will have no chance to vote him out of office as President Putin abolished elections for regional leaders after the siege. With the tacit support of the Kremlin, the Government has begun a campaign to discredit and intimidate the Beslan mothers