Children from the Russian town of Beslan went back to school today, two weeks late, after living through the horror of the siege of Middle School No 1. That school was destroyed in the siege’s bloody ending, which claimed the lives of up to 400 people, most of them children. The pupils of School No 1 are not returning to school quite yet - most of them have been sent to rest at sanatoriums in the Black Sea resort of Sochi or other resort towns.
Jeremy Page, Moscow Correspondent of The Times, was at Beslan’s Middle School No 6 this morning to see the children return to school, and a town begin to return to normal.
“The kids were dressed very smartly this morning, as they are in most of Ossetia: the boys in black suits and white shirts, the girls in navy-blue skirts and white blouses.
“But the most striking thing was how few of them there were. There were meant to be 900 in Middle School No 6 today, but the headmistress told me that only a fifth had turned up. A few of the elder ones came on their own, those whose parents were working, but most were brought in by their mothers, who took them right into the school. Some of the mothers asked to stay - they didn’t want to leave their children.
Advertisement
“It was clear a lot of the children were very scared. There are a lot of psychological scars, and not just for the children who were taken hostage but for the others, these ones, who lost friends, or just watched the siege on television.
“They’ve tightened up security, putting in a new steel gate. And there are four security guards - interior ministry troops in camouflage carrying Kalashnikovs - where before they didn’t have any. They’ll guard all the schools in Beslan this week and then hand it over to private security guards.
“No-one was crying, though. The teachers were making a real effort to make it feel warm and welcoming. It’s a small town, everyone knows each other, but they were trying to make it seem as normal and happy as possible for the children.
“And a lot of the younger children did seem pleased to be back among their friends in a relatively normal evnironment - the last couple of weeks have been extraordinary for everyone.
“So it’s still a long way from normal - some of the classes had only three or four kids in.
Advertisement
“When I left Beslan last week, the grief was all-consuming, the funerals were coming thick and fast and the sound of people wailing seemed to be coming out of almost every home. It does look like things are starting to get back to normal. It’s still a long way off, but people are starting to get back into the swing of things, hard as it is.
“I went past School No 1, which is about half a mile away. It’s more or less deserted now, just a few people still looking around. It’s going to be pulled down and they’ll build two new schools - but not on that site, that will be a memorial.”