Day of mourning for hospital suicide attack victims

Soldiers and civilians in southern Russia observed a day of mourning in honour of the victims of the suicide truck-bombing that killed 50 people at a military hospital.

Officials dedicated a memorial stone at the ruins of the hospital in the North Ossetia region, which was destroyed on Friday when a truck packed with explosives crashed through the hospital gates and exploded in a giant fireball.

“Those who think that they can bring us to our knees with such atrocities are deeply mistaken,” said Colonel General Vladimir Boldyrev, the chief of the North Caucasus Military District said during a ceremony, his voice tense with emotion.

“We will avenge that, we will kill the bandits always and everywhere until we have killed them all.”

Officials suspect Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev of masterminding the attack on the hospital in Mozdok, a city that serves as a staging ground for the war in Chechnya.

Funerals for the victims began on Sunday and were continuing today. The Russian Cabinet allocated compensation payments to families of the victims and for those who were wounded in the attack.

Sixty-four victims remained in hospital, many in grave condition, officials said.

Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency, said today that they had “general” information prior to the explosion about a possible attack, but no specific tips.

In a meeting with officials last night, President Vladimir Putin castigated the authorities for negligence, saying that “the laxity that we have seen in a series of cases, and which is conducive to crimes and terrorist acts, has gone beyond all bounds.”

Putin has vowed that recent attacks will not stop efforts to restore “normal peaceful life” in the region.