‘They killed children here’

THE evening light fades from the charred shell of the gymnasium at School Number 1, and Vitaly throws his hands out wide and spits out a string of profanities.

“They killed people here, not just people, children! Children! They killed children here!” said the 29-year-old, who declined to give his last name. “I have nothing but shock, shock.”

This town of 35,000 in the southern Russian region of North Ossetia was dealing with overwhelming grief for the hundreds who suffered and died during three unspeakable days of horror at the hands of armed militants.