11/09/2004

Beslan bishop tells of horror and heartbreak

The Russian Orthodox head of the diocese that includes Beslan gave a dramatic description of the terror visited on the town last week, to a major interreligious gathering in Milan. In one of the worst terrorist atrocities in modern times, at least 330 people, half of them children, died after a siege ended on 3 September in a bloody shootout between police and hostage-takers believed to be Chechen rebels (see article, p.4).

Last Sunday Bishop Teofan of Stravropol and Vladikavkaz described to hundreds of religious leaders from around the world how he personally carried wounded and dead children away from the school.

�I carried those children in my arms,� Bishop Teofan told the meeting. �I closed the eyes of the parents whom the terrorists killed in front of their children.�

The bishop, dressed in black, struck a solemn figure as he walked slowly on to the podium at the Teatro Arcimboldi to open the three-day meeting of world religious leaders sponsored by the Rome-based Community of Sant�Egidio. Among those present were 12 cardinals and patriarchs, including the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, Dionigi Tettamanzi, and the head of the Vatican�s Christian unity council, Cardinal Walter Kasper. Also attending was Yona Metzger, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, and the Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, as well as Islamic representatives.

There was a respectful silence as the bishop, dressed in black, asked: �How can they claim to be fighting for freedom when they kill children?�

Bishop Teofan said that as soon as he heard that children and adults were being held hostage he rushed to Beslan and offered to serve as a mediator. �But every attempt at dialogue was refused,� he said.

�They put all the children in a gym where there wasn�t even room for them to sit down,� the bishop said. �They strung a rope between the two basket hoops and forced the children to hang grenades from it.�

�On the third day,� he continued, �the terrorists exploded two bombs, which was what killed most of the children. Those who tried to flee were shot in the back.�

The bishop asked all people of good will to unite �against the evil of terrorism, which can strike in New York as well as in Madrid or in Beslan or anywhere�.

More than 700 people were injured, about 450 hospitalised, and another 200 declared missing following the end of the siege, which began when pro-Chechen gunmen took over the school last week. On Sunday, as the meeting got under way in Milan, special church services were held across Russia as hundreds of small coffins were lowered into the ground in Beslan. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, declared two days of official mourning.

When reports of the death toll began to arrive at the Vatican on 3 September, the Pope, who was staying at his residence outside Rome, went to a private chapel to pray, a spokesman said. The next day he issued a telegram describing the deaths as a �cruel epilogue� to a savage attack. The takeover of the school in the North Ossetia province town was a �vile and heartless act of aggression against defenceless children and families�, he said in a 4 September telegram. The Pope once again condemned �every form of terrorism� and said he hoped that a �spiral of hatred and violence would not prevail�.

The conference in Milan, which took as its theme �Religions and Cultures: the courage of a new humanism�, takes place in a different city each year. It has been organised by the Community of Sant�Egidio since 1986, when the Pope first called the meeting of the world�s religious leaders to pray for peace at Assisi.

Speaking in Milan, the head of the Vatican�s justice and peace council, Cardinal Renato Martino, said the struggle against terrorism was tantamount to another world war. It was a battle which �really involves all of us�, he told the gathering, before going on to describe the sensation of widespread fear at the prospect of another terrorist strike.

�We don�t know if something will happen as we leave this hotel, or when we get on board a bus, or go into a bar,� he said. Ordinary citizens could not avoid these fears or find effective ways of answering the threat they feel, he added.

�With terrorism, warfare has lost its conventional appearance,� he said. But he warned that �force alone� would be insufficient to defeat it.

In his homily on Sunday at Milan Cathedral, Cardinal Tettamanzi said the Holy Spirit �rouses and directs our hearts to pray for the children and all those people who were killed by the useless, vile and merciless slaughter of Beslan�. He added that the same Spirit �constantly generates in us the hope that even the most hardened heart may open up to conversion and the barbarousness of terror will stop shedding blood on earth�.

Austen Ivereigh