The tragedy in Beslan, 20 years later.

 

20 years ago, on September 3, 2004, one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century - Beslan - ended with terrible consequences. Then - on September 01, the day of the beginning of the school year, in this small town in the south of Russia, in the Republic of North Ossetia, terrorists seized a secondary school, more than 1100 people were taken hostage, most of whom were children.

The terrorists booby-trapped the school building, where they held hostages for 2.5 days, including many pregnant women and children under the age of 1 year. The criminals held people without water, food and access to medical care.

On September 03, special units started storming the captured school, some of the bombs were defused, but the criminals managed to detonate the other part of them. They were also shooting the hostages chaotically with all kinds of automatic firearms, as well as with hand grenades. Out of 32 terrorists, 31 were killed, 1 was arrested (currently serving a life sentence in prison).

The victims of the terrorist attack were 333 people, including:

- 186 children between the ages of 7 and 17;

- 17 teachers and school staff;

- 111 parents of students and guests of the school;

- 11 members of the assault special forces and police officers;

- 8 emergency services personnel.

This is a terrible tragedy, which in its scale, cruelty and number of victims - shocked the world. I was not interested in the motives of the criminals, I believe that such crimes do not and cannot have any justification, without exception.

Personally for me the tragedy in the school of Beslan became a starting point, it was then that I began to actively study and develop such a direction of applied criminology as “Ensuring the safety of schools and other educational institutions from criminal and terrorist threats”. Unfortunately, the results of my research do not give reason for optimism, because no one has drawn any conclusions from this terrible crime. In the 20 years that have passed since the tragedy, 218 crimes* (not including 2024) falling under the signs of mass murder have occurred in schools, kindergartens, colleges and universities around the world, 17 of them were qualified as terrorist acts, 18 were connected with hostage-taking. The victims of these tragedies were 2,649 people, of whom 933 died and 1,716 were injured, most of them children.

As it is not sad, but the dynamics of such crimes is not decreasing, schools, kindergartens, colleges, universities and other educational institutions, as well as places with mass presence of children, continue to be «easy targets» for criminals and terrorists, which means that no one and nowhere is safe from the repetition of a tragedy like the terrorist act in the school of Beslan, it is only a matter of time. So for now we can only wait.

Is it possible to completely eliminate the risk of a repetition of such crimes? I believe that no, it is impossible. However, it is quite possible to significantly reduce the risk of such tragedies, as well as the scale of their consequences.

Are there effective ways and methods to counter such threats? Yes, there are.

What is needed for this? The presence of two conditions:

1. Recognition of the fact of existence of the threat, that schools, kindergartens, colleges, universities and other educational institutions, as well as places with mass stay of children, are objects of increased danger.

2. Complete change of the existing approach to the system of ensuring the safety of such institutions. It is quite possible to make them safe without turning them into analogs of military bases or prisons. How exactly, is a topic for a separate conversation, which makes sense only after condition № 1 is met.

Author - Roman Grishin

* Statistical data are taken from Handbook of Crimes and Terrorist Acts in schools and other educational institutions

photo taken from the website: Network edition «Alpha news»

#Beslan #tragedy #terrorist #attack #terroristattack #terrorist_attack #terrorism #murder #threat #conclusions #victims