Five years on, 334 balloons mark Beslan tragedy

Russia Hundreds of mourners stood in silence in Beslan on Thursday as schoolchildren released white balloons in memory of the 334 people who died in Russia's most wrenching hostage tragedy five years ago.

A thousand mourners including survivors and relatives of those perished in the Beslan school hostage massacre gathered outside the crumbling ruins of School Number One in the small town in the turbulent Caucasus region.

They marked the moment at 1.05 pm when an explosion inside the school triggered a disastrous rescue operation.

The schoolchildren released into the blue sky 334 white balloons, one for each of the dead, as a bell tolled.

Five years on, a host of questions about the siege and the subsequent rescue operation remain unanswered and survivors, relatives and parents say they have yet to see a fair investigation into the tragedy.

Prayer services in memory of all those who fell victim to terror acts in Russia in recent years were performed throughout the country and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked his ministers to observe a minute's silence at the start of a government meeting.

He asked the cabinet to remember the "most difficult tragedies: Beslan and the terror act at Dubrovka," referring to the October 2002 siege of the Moscow-based Dubrovka theatre by Chechen rebels in which 130 people died.

The Voice of Beslan, one of the two groups representing the victims of the school siege, has been lobbying for a law that would grant benefits to survivors of terror acts but its requests have fallen on deaf ears, said its co-chair Ella Kesayeva.
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The group has also asked President Dmitry Medvedev to meet its activists during the three-day period of mourning but has not heard from the Kremlin as of Thursday, she told AFP.

Ruslan Aushev, a former leader of Ingushetia who still commands wide respect in the region, called on authorities to do their best to help the survivors, many of whom eke out a threadbare living on a tiny disability pension.

"Is it that hard for a huge country to pay attention to these people?" he said on the Echo of Moscow radio, urging Medvedev and other top officials to meet the survivors.

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