20 August 2024, 23:37
Putin visits destroyed Beslan School for first time since the terror act
For the first time since the terror act committed back in 2004, Russian President has visited the building of School No. 1 in Beslan although he had earlier been to Beslan several days after the terror act and in 2008. He has also visited the memorial to the victims, kneeling before it and crossing himself.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in July 2022, victims of the Beslan terror act complained about obstacles in receiving the needed medical care.
On September 1, 2004, militants took 1128 hostages in the gym of School No. 1 in Beslan. As a result, 334 people perished, including 186 children, and other 810 were wounded.
The Russian President has visited the "City of Angels" Memorial Cemetery, where he laid flowers at the Tree of Sorrow, a monument in memory of the dead hostages, and a monument to the special fighters of the units "Alpha" and "Vympel", who died during the assault, the Kremlin press service has informed.
The President first visited Beslan immediately after the terror act, on September 4, 2004, when he visited victims in hospitals.
In his interview for a film by Yuri Dud*, Taimuraz Mamsurov, a former head of North Ossetia, said that Vladimir Putin visited Beslan not only in 2004, but also in 2008, when he held the post of Prime Minister – he visited the cemetery where the victims of the terror act are buried.
In 2005, a year after the tragedy, Putin had appointment with members of the "Beslan Mothers" Committee. After the meeting, parents of those killed and wounded in Beslan expected Putin to speak out words of repentance and his guilt admission in the Beslan tragedy, said Susanna Dudieva, who then chaired the "Beslan Mothers" Committee.
Only in December 2018, 14 years after the tragedy, Alexander Matovnikov, the presidential envoy to the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), officially admitted for the first time since the terror act that the school assault had been planned from the very beginning, despite local residents' protests. He also confirmed that the school had been shelled from a tank.
*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 20, 2024 at 03:26 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Source: Caucasian Knot
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