BESLAN TERRORISTS EXECUTED SCHOOLBOYS…

Further confirmation that the Beslan terrorists killed schoolboys, not just grown men, in cold blood came in an October 4 article in Novaya gazeta by Kseniya Leonova, who interviewed 14-year-old ex-hostage Andrei Kuznetsov and his mother. Andrei is convinced that his short height saved his life; he said that the terrorists forced his taller schoolmates along with the adult male hostages to carry boxes of weapons up from the basement—”and then they shot many of them.”

Andrei’s mother told the journalist that the ordeal had had a seemingly irreversible effect on the child hostages, making them highly aggressive and distrustful. One can only wonder how many of them will grow up seeking revenge.

A precise, reliable list of the Beslan tragedy’s victims still does not exist, according to an article in the October 11 edition of Novaya gazeta. The draft list currently includes 1345 names of hostages, but even that figure is still tentative—as are figures for the numbers of dead, heavily wounded, lightly wounded, and missing.