European Court of Human Rights to rule on 2004 Beslan siege

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Court of Human Rights is due to rule on whether the Russian government should have done more to prevent the 2004 Beslan school siege in which more than 300 people died, BBC News reports.

School number one in Beslan was attacked by Chechen separatists who took more than 1,000 people hostage, the vast majority of them children.

It ended when Russian security forces stormed the building.

A Russian investigation into the events stalled several years ago.

No Russian official has been held responsible for the high number of deaths, which included 186 children.

The hostages were crammed into their school sports hall beneath explosives strung from the basketball hoops. Their captors were demanding Russian troops pull out of Chechnya.

The siege ended suddenly on the third day with two powerful and deadly explosions.

Only one of the hostage takers was caught alive and put on trial.

For more than a decade, survivors and relatives have been asking whether the siege could have been prevented and whether so many people had to die in the rescue operation.

More than 400 of them have applied to the court in Strasbourg in the hope that it can deliver answers.