Beslan residents protest over siege inquiry

Distraught parents and grandparents of children killed in the Beslan school massacre last year blocked a busy route in southern Russia for a second day today in a call for the regional president to step down.

The protesters were also calling for an international investigation into the September terrorist seizure of the Beslan elementary school which left more than 330 hostages dead.

Regional President Alexander Dzasokhov spoke to demonstrators this morning, it was reported.

He told them that he was “an adherent not of emotional actions but of balanced, constructive dialogue” and expressed his readiness “to meet time and again with the families of those suffering as a result of the terrorist attack in Beslan”.

He warned against actions that could lead to strife and said there were unspecified, “invisible” people seeking to use the situation to achieve political goals. He said he would not step down pending implementation of the new procedure for appointment of regional leaders.

Dzasokhov had faced heavy popular pressure to step down after the Beslan tragedy but remained in office, though he fired the regional government.

The protesters yesterday set up a tent that blocked the main federal highway in the North Ossetia region, the Rostov-Baku road, a police source in North Ossetia said. They were gathering wood for bonfires, hoping to block nearby roads and draw more local residents into their protest.

Authorities did not permit journalists to reach the protest site, and Alexander Torshin, the head of the parliamentary commission investigating the tragedy, abruptly called off a meeting with reporters that had been scheduled in Moscow.

Many residents are furious at regional authorities for failing to avert the attack on the school, which was stormed on September 1 by gunmen who held more than 1,000 people hostage for three days.

The seizure ended in explosions and gunfire, and more than half of the hostages killed were children.

The police source said some of the protesters accused authorities of understating the number of assailants who attacked the school and of neglecting to adequately search for four children they said remain missing. Some also criticised the Russian parliament commission investigation into the attack, the source said.

Russian officials have said 32 raiders took part in the attack, and that 31 of them were killed while one was captured.