A three-day watch in memory of the victims of the terrorist act at school No 1 in Beslan in 2004 will take place from September 1 to 3 in North Ossetia, the press service of the head and government of the Republic reports.
The 17th anniversary of the terrorist attack will begin in the morning with a school bell. Under the sound of funeral music, flowers will be laid, a requiem mass will be held, candles will be lit. The event will be attended by the leadership of the republic, the public.
A press conference of the casualties of the terrorist attack will take place in the afternoon. Then - the action "Rescuers and the Rescued", within the framework of which commemorative medals "Thank you for life" will be awarded to rescuers of children, doctors and social workers involved in the treatment and rehabilitation of the wounded. Candles will be lit in the school yard in the evening. Flower-laying will continue on Thursday.
On Friday, September 3, the school will host a divine liturgy and funeral ceremony. The memory of the victims will be honored with a minute of silence, and the schoolchildren will release balloons into the sky. On this day, a religious procession with portraits of the victims will take place. At the memorial complex "City of Angels" flowers and wreaths will be laid to the "Tree of Sorrow" monument and the graves of the perished. In the evening, candles will be lit again in the school yard.
A group of terrorists numbering more than 30 people seized school No. 1 in Beslan on the morning of September 1, 2004 during a festive line-up. The terrorists drove more than a thousand hostages, including young children, into the gym of the school. People were forcibly kept in school for three days, without giving them water and food.
At about noon on September 3, a car with four employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations drove up to the school building, who were supposed to pick up the bodies of the men killed by the terrorists. At that moment, explosions were heard in the school, after which indiscriminate shooting began on both sides, and children and women began to jump out of the windows and the gap formed in the wall of the gymnasium.
The victims of the tragedy were 334 people, including 318 hostages, of whom 186 were children. Also killed were ten employees of the Special Forces Center of the FSB of Russia, two employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and 15 police officers. 810 hostages, officers of the FSB special forces, police and military personnel were wounded.
