Two Beslan siege children not claimed by parents

TWO children who survived the Beslan school siege earlier this month have still not been identified.

The children are in two hospitals in North Ossetia.

Lev Dzugayev, spokesman for the president of North Ossetia, said the two could not be identified either because they are too young or in too much shock.

He gave no further details on their age or the nature of their injuries.

It has been speculated in the Russian media that the children must have lost their parents and immediate family in the siege, as no one has come forward to claim them as a relative.

The children are believed to be so traumatised they are suffering from amnesia.

The story of the unidentified children is one of many horrific tales still emerging from Beslan, where 11 days after the end of the school siege, more than 100 people, including dozens of children, are still missing.

Many of the missing came out alive from the siege and then disappeared, relatives claim. Sabina Mamayeva’s father remembers helping his wounded daughter after she escaped from the Beslan school.

He says he put her in a white car and sent her to hospital. His wife saw the pair on television. Sabina hasn’t been seen since.

More than 1,200 people were taken hostage when 30 armed men and women seized School No 1 in the small town of Beslan in southern Russia on September 1. Special forces stormed the building two days later after explosions rocked the building in a chaotic end to the siege that saw hundreds die.

The death toll from the Beslan school siege stands at 331, including 174 children. More than 500 people were wounded and more than 90 bodies remain unidentified pending DNA tests that could take up to a month.