Lesson in fear for children who stayed away (BESLAN)

The Times ^ | September 16, 2004 | Jeremy Page

[MadIvan]

A North Ossetian police officer outside Middle School No 6 in Beslan, where only a fifth of its 900 pupils returned yesterday. Classrooms had earlier been searched with sniffer dogs. (MAXIM MARMUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Thousands of youngsters are still too traumatised to face school, but some have braved it

WITH fear in their eyes, the children of Beslan started to return to school yesterday under armed guard, two weeks after the start of the hostage crisis that tore apart their community and shocked the world.

But three quarters of the town’s 10,000 schoolchildren stayed at home, too scared to leave their families or forbidden by nervous parents still grieving for loved ones and worrying about further attacks.

At Middle School No 6, four camouflaged security guards armed with Kalashnikovs watched over the newly reinforced gates as mothers ushered their charges into classrooms that had been searched with sniffer dogs earlier in the morning.

“Fear,” Kostya Salamov, 14, said when asked what he felt on returning to his school. “They say some of the terrorists escaped and took hostages with them. They could try something again.” As he rejoined his schoolmates, a minute’s silence was held to commemorate the 338 hostages — half of them children — who were killed during the siege or the fight that ended it on September 3.

Irina Azimova, the headmistress of Middle School No 6, said that only one fifth of her 900 pupils had arrived for class yesterday. She hoped to get them all back by Monday.

Doctors and experts say that it will take months, even years, to heal the psychological scars left by one of Russia’s worst terrorist attacks.

Many pupils from Middle School No 1, who are recuperating in hospitals, rehabilitation centres and sanatoriums throughout Russia, say that they never want to go back to school.

“They are psychologically traumatised,” said Uruzmag Dzhanaev, the head doctor at the children’s hospital in Vladikavkaz, the regional capital, where 107 children are still being treated. “Many of them sleep badly and they have bad dreams. Some have memory loss.”

In one of his wards, Artur Dzogoyev, 7, lay on his bed quietly fiddling with a new toy car as he recovered from burns to his back caused by explosions in the school gymnasium. His mother, Medina, said that he had woken terrified in the night when he heard the sound of an aircraft flying overhead.

“He thought it was the bandits coming back,” she said. “We’re all afraid. He wants to go to see the wreckage of the gymnasium, but he never wants to go to school again.”

Authorities have said that Middle School No 1, which was closed with all the others in Beslan after the hostage ordeal, is to be razed and replaced by a memorial. A local Russian Orthodox bishop has proposed building a church there.

Vladislav Totrov, North Ossetia’s Deputy Minister of Education, said that the school’s pupils would remain on leave for another 24 days and then be distributed among the other five schools in Beslan.

The schools would be guarded 24 hours a day by Interior Ministry forces this week and then by private security guards, he said.

The re-opening of the schools had been planned for Tuesday, but was postponed at the last minute so that security forces could continue searches for weapons and explosives.

Unicef, the United Nations’ children’s agency, is also starting a project under which traumatised children will have counselling from specialists who treated the victims of the apartment bombings in Moscow in 1999, attacks that were blamed on Chechen rebels.

Carel De Rooy, Unicef’s representative in Russia, said: “The majority don’t want to go back to school. That shows they’re really going to need support.

“And then there’s the question of healing the nation as a whole — getting Ossetians, Ingush and Chechens together. That’s a deep structural issue — you can feel the tensions.”

[MadIvan]

This effect is what the terrorists had in mind, to cow the Russians into submission. They probably feel they can do the same in the West, which indicates they don't understand us - an incident like this will increase determination to destroy them.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[TASMANIANRED]

Those poor babies.

[Bobby777]

how can those children return to that school? I fear the psychological damage would be dramatic. I wondered if today if they shouldn't level the building and build another. Not to give the terrorists any victory, simply as an alternative.

I can't imagine the parents wanting them to return to Beslan either. How terrible.

[struwwelpeter]

There's probably no money for that.

Prayers for the little darlings, Pust' Bog khranit Vas.

[texasflower]

All they would have to do is tell the American people that they don't have money for a new school.

They would be flooded with enough private donations to build a new school within a very short time.

But the media is too busy trying to destroy the President.

[tkathy]

The two-faced Islamic charities who are funneling money to the slaughterers, should be putting money into building these children a school. They should be giving money to the families of the murdered, instead of what is probably happening, giving money to the families of the suicide killers.

[jb6]

I highly doubt that they can cow Russians into anything. The very fact that there were demonstrations with Russians waving flags that read Death to the Terrorists says it all. Putin, supposably, is mulling a bill for full gun rights and creation of local militias.

Russians are now cowable, not any more then Americans, that is why the Soviets had to kill 30 million people and it still only had a partial effect.

[Bobby777]

I thought there were donations going on? I wasn't aware of how much had been raised though, I'll admit.