Sunday, January 23, 2005
 Independent (UK) 22 January 2005: About 500 distraught relatives from the devastated town of Beslan blocked a major road for the second day running yesterday, angered by what they say is appalling official apathy over Russia's worst terrorist attack.
The protesters claim that an official parliamentary inquiry into last September's school siege in the town has so far revealed nothing.
They say they will not abandon their tents, bonfires and road blocks until an independent international inquiry into the bloodbath is promised.
They also argue that Alexander Dzasokhov, president of North Ossetia, the Russian republic where Beslan is located, should resign over the incompetent way in which the siege and its aftermath were handled. Mr Dzasokhov's officials told the world's media that 354 hostages were being held inside the school when the real number was more than 1,100.
[...]
Only about half of the 31 dead Chechen militants have been identified and members of the Russian parliamentary inquiry into the matter have infuriated relatives of the dead by suggesting that some of the militants may have got away.
As protesters blocked the main road from southern Russia into neighbouring Azerbaijan and the road to the region's biggest airport, their placards told their own story.
"Dzasokhov is Moscow's puppet," read one. "Why were our children killed?" asked another.
[...]
Many clutched framed photographs of their children and said that President Dzasokhov had their children's blood "on his hands and on his conscience". He is blamed by many for the systematic corruption that allowed the hostage-takers to bribe their way through various official checkpoints before storming the school.
Russian media reported that the unpopular president had said force might have to be used to break up the demonstration and had made it clear he was unwilling to resign.
Much of the protesters' anger is also directed at the parliamentary investigators.
"This demonstration is a result of the parliamentary commission coming here this week and telling the mothers of the victims nothing but lies," a spokeswoman for the commission set up by the school's teachers said.
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