The Hindu : International : Long road to recovery for Beslan survivors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 12, 2004

International

International

Long road to recovery for Beslan survivors

By Carolynne Wheeler

BESLAN, SEPT. 11. In the gymnasium where he spent most of his 53 hours as a hostage, 12-year-old Soslan Beteyev mechanically recounts the details of his ordeal. "They told us if you don't listen to us, if we see you touching the wires [holding the mines], we will kill you. Then they took three children away and shot them," he says, gesturing with an arm scabbed over with shrapnel wounds. He barely pauses for breath as he races through the corridors and schoolrooms.

His compulsion to speak is one of the classic symptoms of trauma exhibited by children who survived the terror of Beslan, symptoms which could take years to overcome.

Most of the school's 885 students and 56 teachers, as well as parents, grandparents and siblings, were in the schoolyard on September 1 when gunmen herded them inside. More than a week later, a definite list still does not exist

Scarred by trauma

Russian experts estimate it will take most children up to three years to make a complete recovery. Even children who escaped in the first moments, or those who were kept home that day, have suffered psychologically. Some, experts say, are completely withdrawn; others tell their story repeatedly.

Worst off are those who were in the gymnasium. Some watched a man being shot dead as he tried to calm the children by speaking in Ossetian; others were forced to drink their own urine to quench their thirst and had guns put at their heads. Later, as the mines exploded above and around them, they climbed through windows over dead classmates, only to be shot in their backs and legs as they fled. Zara Medeyeva (65), who survived the siege with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, said the children were afraid to return to school.

Preparing the cure

Russian Federal authorities have sent roubles 10 million, with more to come, for therapy for all students, their families and school staff. It will begin with a month at a seaside health retreat; some children, including Soslan, will leave on Monday for Sochi, on the Black Sea coast. The Russian presidential administration and top executives from Russia's richest companies have offered the use of their luxurious sanatoriums to survivors.

There, as the injured continue physical therapy, psychologists and psychiatrists will counsel children and their families and run art-therapy sessions. Eventually, they will be gently reintroduced to school lessons. Later this autumn, children will be redistributed among seven other schools in Beslan. Middle School No. 1 will be demolished once the investigation is finished and replaced with a memorial to the 350 who died here. Two smaller schools will replace it. —

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