More than 100 people still missing after siege

SABINA MAMAYEVA’S father remembers helping his wounded daughter after she escaped from the mayhem of the Beslan school siege.

He says he remembers putting her in a white car and sending her off to hospital. His wife saw the pair on television. But Sabina hasn’t been seen since.

Eleven days after the end of the Beslan school siege, more than 100 people, including dozens of children, are still missing.

Many of those missing, relatives claim, came out alive from the siege and then disappeared.

More than 1,200 people were taken hostage when 30 armed men and women seized School No. 1 in the small town of Beslan on September 1.

As of this week, the death toll from the Beslan school siege is 331, including 174 children. More than 500 people were wounded and more than 90 bodies remain unidentified pending DNA tests.

Identifying the remains could take up to a month. Despite the end of the siege, much remains confused.

The authorities have yet to say exactly how many people were held hostage and the wounded are spread far and wide. Many of the injured were taken to the nearby cities of Vladikavkaz, Rostov and to Moscow.

Relatives have had to travel to various hospitals to search for relatives themselves.

The confused state of the wounded, especially children who could not say their own name, or said the wrong name, has also greatly complicated the situation. Photos of missing hostages remain stuck all over the town and in neighbouring towns.

Russia’s biggest channel, Channel One, has devoted seven pages on its website to pictures of the missing, 66 photos in all. Some of the pictures insist the missing person was seen being taken out alive.

The local government though has dismissed parents claims “They were in shock,” said Rita Kudzoyeva, the deputy head of the Pravoberezhny Region saying they were all mistaken. “The bodies are all destroyed.”

Relatives though remain hopeful and distrustful of anything the local government says. During the siege, local authorities said there were only 354 hostages despite knowing the real figure was many times higher.