Wednesday september 1, 2004, an unknown amount of terrorists knew they were going to take children, their parents, brothers and sisters, and teachers and other people hostage.
They were fully prepared.
Somewhere in the normal village school they had hidden explosives and other materials.
While they were hanging ropes wired with explosives above the heads of the children and the others, the world was told that in the school 300 lives were in danger.
The hostagetakers were suicidekillers. It was unknown how many where in the school.
Some months earlier there had been a hostagetaking in a cinema and when this was ended there was a terrible amount of victims.
So now the world was holding it's breath: would the russian govenment end this hostagetaking the same way?
In the 10 days before the schoolraid two passenger planes exploded in the air and crashed, killing 89 people (Aug. 24), and 10 died after a suicide bomb attack near a Moscow subway station (aug 30th).
All believed to be related to the political problems in Chechnya.
And in the school were "black widows", Chechnyan women dressed in black with explosives tied to them, willing to kill and die.
The waiting was terrible. In the schoolgarden one could see bodies of those who died during the first minutes.
The people at the gate soon concluded that far more than 1000 people were kept hostage, but the official announcements said at the first day between 140 and 150, and at the second day: about 300.
The first and second day a few people were released.
Desperation took hold of the people at the gates, because shots and explosions were heard and there was no food nor water accepted for the hostages.
All over the world Beslan was at the center of attention.
At fridaymorning there seemed to be no change.
During the afternoon the terrorists allowed that the dead bodies would be taken away from the schoolgarden.
It's not clear what exactly triggered the first Russian to shoot.
Fact is that at the time the bodies were approached the helpers were shot at and at the same time some children escaped. When the terrorists saw that they fired at the children.
What followed was pure hell and can't be described.
Due to explosions and a helicopter the roof of the gymnasium collapsed.
At the same time people were running out.
The children were naked.
At first it was thought the hostagetakers had forced the children to stay there in their underpants, later it turned out they had taken off their clothes because it was so very hot in the crowded gymnasium.
The sight of the almost naked running children, some covered in blood, and all with deathfear in their eyes, was so distressing that fathers and boys ran towards the school, not caring of they were shot at.
They saved a lot of children, but the chaos also enabled some terrorists to escape.
It took many hours before the police and anti-terrorist units had cleared the school.
Injured children and others were rushed to hospitals around Beslan.
Families lost track of them and had to go through awful experiences like visiting the hospitals and waiting for long hours for information, and/or walking past many death bodies till they were able to identify their beloved ones.
On mondaymorning the official amount of deaths was 335, but the mortuaries already had counted 394.
380 people, of which 197 children, were still in hospital. 55 fighting for their lives.
30 terrorists were killed and 3 imprisoned.
Interfax, the Russian pressagency told that 191 people were missing.
A few hours later 420 people were hospitalized, of which 327 children. 58 were fighting for their lives.
4 days later far more than 100 bodies were unidentified and it was said that 727 hostages were injured.
More than 14 days later there's still a discrepancy between the numbers that are officially released and that are used by local organisations.
About 400 people are killed, including about 200 children, and more than 100 people are missing.
I know the terrible images will never fade in my memory. The cries of the parents, the children.
Trying to imagine what the teachers must have felt...
These days are the worst that have come through me through the media.
To me it seems that all these children and grown ups have been sacrificed because people don't respect each other, feel better than others, and want to persist in disputes and taking revenge. The media is just another place where the war between Chechnya and Russia is fought.
The world is left emptyhanded, because we witness, feel with all the relatives and friends the pain that is left, feel rage because children are used to fight a battle.
Many of the people who have witnessed this don't even know the history behind this all, and part of them don't even want to know it.
Using children as a weapon to gain control of a situation that has spiralled far beyond control will never be tolerated.
But we can only grief
and never forget.
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