Terror in Beslan (Part 2 of 2)

The school siege in Beslan was 20 years ago. But it still resonates today. It was the most searing story I reported on in 15 years of covering wars, revolutions and terrorist attacks.

Rescuers taking children from the school in Beslan. Courtesy of Reuters.

It was 20 years ago last week and I was in the southern Russian town of Beslan. In a school not more than a few hundred yards from where I was standing, militants loyal to a brutal Chechen warlord were holed up with more than a thousand schoolchildren, parents and teachers.

In the school gym where they had crammed the hostages in the late summer heat, the gunmen had strung up bombs and explosives. The terrorists' demands were that Russia pull its troops out of Chechnya, a few dozen miles to the east.

And then there were two loud explosions. My heart sank.

[If you haven’t read Part 1 click here to read that first…. Open to free and paid subscribers.]

Continued from Part 1…

…As the front-line moved forward I went with it. A man was being hauled away towards an ambulance in a blanket by four men. He looked badly wounded.

Cars drove through the streets, swerving crazily. Some carried fighters, others were coming to get the dead and wounded.

Here the fighting was heavier. Bullets hit the masonry and there was the whine of ricochets. One bullet crashed into a wall about four yards away. Soldiers crouched behind huge metal containers.

As the Russian special forces clambered over a wall and into a garden I followed. It was only about 100 yards from the school. The fire was thick and heavy.

One soldier who looked about 20 years old was hit in the leg. A huge gaping wound opened up in the top of his thigh. Immediately others rushed to his aid and pulled him to safety. One held a huge white bandage to try and staunch the bleeding.

The soldier was terrified. His face turned ashen and he began to blink rapidly. For a couple of minutes he lay where he was. There were no ambulances and the access roads were too dangerous.

Then he looked into my eyes, almost pleading. But we both knew that he was not going to make it. He was losing too much blood.

A rescuer carrying a boy from the school in Beslan. Courtesy of Reuters.

Then another man was hit, this time about 60 yards away. "First aid, first aid," his colleagues shouted. Fresh shooting erupted. Then a wooden gateway opened up.

Locals, many of them armed, had found a way through to the edge of the school. Soldiers, civilians and emergency workers charged through towards the direction of the fire, trampling the long grass.

They returned with a stream of dead and wounded. There was a teenaged girl with a gunshot wound in her side. Another with a toe blown off. A little blonde boy, his face covered in sand, was clearly dead.

As the men, saw them being carried past, they broke down and wept. Relatives began to arrive in cars with screeching tires.

There were harrowing scenes as parents found their children, dead or dying. They bundled them in and sped off to the local hospital.

One woman who broke down was bundled into the back of a police car.

"My child is dead, my child is dead," she wailed. Nearby a man was tearing the curtains from his old van to use a makeshift bandages.

There was more shooting, more explosions. A blonde medic, dressed in army camouflage, crouched behind a van. Her face glistened with sweat and her carefully-applied make-up was running.

By now the stretchers were becoming blood-stained. There were simply too many wounded. A Spetsnaz soldier who had been shot in the leg was helped to a waiting Jeep.

I ran down a side-street. In each courtyard, armed men crouched guns pointing outwards. At the end of the road the school itself came into view. Huge plumes of smoke were pouring from the roof which had caved in. The supporting timbers were smouldering.

Beslan’s School No 1 the day after the siege ended. Courtesy of Reuters.

Many of the armed men by the school were locals who had taken up arms. Their blood was boiling.

A few moments later an ambulance emerged from near the school. One of the locals opened the door to check on the occupant. Then a blood-curdling howl went up.

Inside was one of the hostage-takers, injured, still dressed in camouflage. The authorities had been trying to take him out - no doubt for arrest and questioning.

But the local dragged out the slight man and began kicking him. Other men rushed in and stamped on him furiously.

Within a minute or two the man was dead, his body a bloody mess. His trousers had been pulled down around his knees and his tunic up around his neck.

Blood was smeared all over his face. The Russian authorities stood aside as the furious relatives had their fill.

Then the mass of people moved on towards the burnt-down school, howling with fear and hatred. Inside they were to find the burnt remains of their children….

Relatives identifying the dead. Courtesy of AFP.

COMMENT

In the end the death toll from Beslan was more than 330. More than 180 of the victims were children.

If the Beslan school siege was to prove pivotal for Putin (see last week’s comment) it was also a turning point for me.

Walking away from the school that day I knew that I had seen too much. I had already been battling symptoms of burn-out – dizzy spells, panic attacks, loss of balance and bad dreams (not to mention some pretty erratic behaviour) - for four or five years by then.

Beslan was to prove the last major story I covered for a long while. The next spring I left the newspaper and went to live in the wilderness in Canada with my new girlfriend Kristin. We bought a run-down ranch and set up a bear-viewing business.

It was to be more than a decade and a half before I returned to report on the frontlines in earnest.

In the case of Beslan ‘like’ is the wrong word, but please ‘like’ this post if you found it interesting or illuminating and offer comments and thoughts, positive or negative. A special thanks to paid subscribers who make this blog possible.

LINKS

Several good documentaries have been made about Beslan but perhaps the most comprehensive is this one made in Russia. It’s fascinating and follows the lives of the victims long after the guns go silent. But, brace yourself, it’s more than three hours long.