By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, Beslan

Amid the ruins of Beslan’s School Number One a stream of mourners have been laying flowers in memory of their loved ones.

The charred floorboards of the sports hall where more than 1,000 people were held hostage are now covered by a thick carpet of carnations.

Five years on, the grief of mothers sobbing for their children sounds as raw as ever.

On 1 September 2004 hundreds of parents, teachers and children had gathered to ring in the new school year when dozens of armed men rushed at them, firing in the air, and forced the crowd into the school gym.

For three days they were held in the cramped, stifling space without food or water. Many were young children; some were infants.

Their captors, who were demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, strung homemade bombs above their heads.

Deep depression

Just after 1300 on 3 September those bombs exploded and Russian special forces soldiers stormed the building.

Alya Fadeeva was 12 when she was rescued and still finds it hard to talk about what happened. She remembers a fire and feeling what she calls a wave pass over her, then pain in her back.

Today she is a smiling 17-year old with no obvious outward sign of her trauma. But she has a thick zig-zag scar on her spine and welts from where doctors removed dozens of pieces of shrapnel. Many of Alya’s closest classmates were killed.

"I sometimes have nightmares but not as often as I did," she told me. "I can sleep at night now like a normal person."

Her mother says it took Alya three years to crawl out of a deep depression.

"Sometimes I get a bad feeling in my back and think about my problems," Alya said. "I will remember it all my life, but I’ve adapted now."

Outside the window children play in the sunshine. It is said there has been a surge in the birth rate in Beslan – perhaps some women’s way of coping.

But this town is still haunted by what happened. The ruins of the old school stand as an inescapable reminder; the gym walls scarred by hundreds of bullet holes. Photographs of more than 300 victims of the siege gaze out over the destruction.

Awful death

Alla Dudieva was just nine when she died. Thirty-nine people from her block of flats were killed.

"We know that officials who have a duty to protect us failed, and we want them named"

Rita Sidakova
Victim’s mother

The children of Beslan five years on

Could Beslan happen again

"They died such an awful death," said Alla’s mother, Rita.

"No-one put the fire out for more than two-and-a-half hours. The children were burned alive. Many were already so weak they couldn’t even fight for their lives."

She said the school ruins were a monument to human cruelty.

Some victims’ relatives in Beslan have re-married, had more children or gone back to work. Others have sought solace in religion, or turned to drink.

Rita belongs to a group of bereaved mothers who take strength from the struggle for justice.

"I know it’s the terrorists’ fault my son died but the authorities are also to blame," said Susanna Dudieva, who runs the Beslan Mothers’ Committee.

"They sacrificed our children instead of negotiating. That’s how our state fights terror."

Call for justice

An official investigation by the federal prosecutor’s office is still not complete. A parliamentary inquiry absolved officials of all responsibility for the large loss of life.

But many questions remain unanswered. Who gave the command to fire from tanks while children were still inside the school

Why were so few ambulances and fire engines put on stand-by Why was a warning about an impending attack ignored

Frustrated in the Russian courts, the mothers’ committee has filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

"We know that officials who have a duty to protect us failed, and we want them named," explained Rita Sidakova. "At least then, the weight of guilt that we mothers carry for sending our children to school that day will be lightened."

Fight with trauma

Many of the siege survivors now attend a smart new school just across the railway track from School Number One.

"The children will never forget what happened to them but they fight with their trauma every day"

Nadezhda Gurieva-Tsaloeva
Beslan hostage

Inside, former hostage Nadezhda Gurieva-Tsaloeva has created a small museum to the tragedy in which two of her own children died.

Vera’s body was identified by the burnt remains of her ball gown. She and her brother Boris were dressed to dance the mambo for their school when the siege began.

"It’s my students who help me go on – when I remember how badly they were hurt and see how they’re pulling themselves out of that situation, slowly, slowly," said Ms Gurieva-Tsaloeva.

"Of course the children will never forget what happened to them but they fight with their trauma every day."

Alya Fadeeva is one child from Beslan who has made huge progress in that struggle. Now she has reached her final year at school and has high ambitions.

"I want to have some profession in the politics sphere," Alya told me shyly, speaking in English.

"I want to make people’s life better than it is now. To protect them from some events that happened with me, and do everything so that nobody will feel the same thing as I did."

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