World News 07-09-2004 Beslan Buries Its Dead who: President Vladimir Putin what: Adopts surprisingly conciliatory tone towards Chechen nationalists as Beslan families bury their dead where: Russia when: Yesterday snippet: "Leaden rain lashed the black and white photograph of Alina Anatolyevna Alikova in Beslan`s cemetery yesterday as the girl carrying it struggled to see more than a few feet in front of her," writes The Independent`s Andrew Osborn. "A fine-boned olive-skinned 30-year-old woman with a neat bob stared out from the framed photograph across a muddy waterlogged field that was filled with tortured cries of anguish and hundreds and hundreds of mourners." The Mirror`s Don Mackay records a similar scene, observing as 40 year-old Ruslan Totiyev, who lost his wife, mother and two boys when Chechen guerillas siezed control of Middle School Number One in the North Ossetian town last week, "ran wildly through the crowd as the coffins were lowered into the ground. Then he collapsed, whispering about his lost family. `He`s gone mad,` said a 70-year-old granny." "The sound of their tears was often drowned by the drone of the mechanical diggers as they excavated yet more graves," says a report by The Sun`s Charles Rae and Will Stewart. "But the machines could not work fast enough. Some families had to dig their own children`s burial plots." There remains a lack of clarity over the identities of the hostage-takers, says The Financial Times. But if and when details emerge from the sometimes impenetrable Russian state news sources, the people of the region will demand revenge and, writes Isabel Gorst, "the potential for violence is high". [... more]

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