Russian authorities are sending hundreds of extra police and troops to Ossetia, as the mourning period for the victims of Beslan comes to an end:
Tanik Kuizev has waited 40 days for revenge for the Beslan school massacre.
Mr Kuizev’s 12-year-old daughter was among the hostages who survived. However, last week he finally buried his niece, after a delay in identifying her disfigured body.
Today is the final day of the 40-day traditional mourning period for the 330 victims – more than half of them children – who died in that maelstrom of gunfire and explosions.
Tomorrow, Mr Kuizev vows, he’ll bury a member of the rival Ingush ethnic group to avenge the murders.
The 3 September attack was carried out by a band of militants with links to Chechen rebels, some of whom came from the province of Ingushetia, which borders North Ossetia.
“There will be violence. It won’t be noisy. It will be quiet – one person at a time,” said Mr Kuizev as he walked through the remains of the school, stepping over stuffed toys left in memory of the victims. “They say, ‘forgive, forgive’. How do you forgive something like this? How do you explain this? Forgive? No way.”
“It’s not a secret that we are waiting [for the end of the mourning period],” said 67-year-old Sergei Tandaleyev of the village of Sunja. “We will demand that [the Ingush] leave. All of them.”
This post at Tacitus is well worth reading for some background.
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