Aftermath

Aftermath
After the bloody conclusion of the crisis, many of the injured died in the only hospital in Beslan, which was highly unprepared to cope with the casualties, before the patients were sent to better-equipped facilities in Vladikavkaz. Relatives were not allowed to visit hospitals where the wounded were treated.
The day after the storming, bulldozers gathered the debris of the building, including the body parts of the victims, and removed it to a garbage dump. The first of the many funerals were conducted on September 4, the day after the final assault, with more following soon after, including mass burials of 120 people. The local cemetery was too small and had to be expanded to an adjacent plot of land to accommodate the dead. Three days after the siege, 180 people were still missing. Many survivors remained severely traumatized and at least one female former hostage committed suicide after returning home.

The unfortunate victims of the attack.


Russian President Vladimir Putin, after returning to Moscow, ordered a two-day period of national mourning for September 6 and September 7, 2004. On the second day of mourning, an estimated 135,000 people joined a government-organised rally against terrorism on the Red Square in Moscow. An estimated 40,000 people gathered in Saint Petersburg's Palace Square.
Increased security measures were introduced to Russian cities. More than 10,000 people without proper documents were detained by Moscow police in a "terrorist hunt". The Russian public appeared to be generally supportive of increased security measures. A September 16, 2004 Levada-Center poll found 58% of Russians supporting stricter counter-terrorism laws and the death penalty for terrorism, while 33% would support banning all Chechens from entering Russian cities.

Motives and Demands
Russian negotiators say the Beslan militants never explicitly stated their demands, although they did have notes handwritten by one of the hostages on a school notebook, in which they spelled out demands of full Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya and recognition of Chechen independence.
The hostage-takers were reported to have made the following demands:
• Withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and independence for Chechnya.
• Presence of the following people at the school: Aleksander Dzasokhov (president of North Ossetia), Murat Zyazikov (president of Ingushetia), Ruslan Aushev (former president of Ingushetia), Leonid Roshal (a pediatrician). Alternatively, instead of Roshal and Aushev, the hostage-takers might have named Vladimir Rushailo and Alu Alkhanov (pro-Moscow President of Chechnya).
Shortly after the crisis, official Russian sources stated that the attackers were part of a supposed international group led by Basayev that included a number of Arabs with connections to al-Qaeda, and claimed they picked up phone calls in Arabic from the Beslan school to Saudi Arabia and another undisclosed Middle Eastern country. Two English/Algerians are among the identified rebels who actively participated in the attack: Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia. Another UK citizen named Kamel Rabat Bouralha, arrested while trying to leave Russia immediately following the attack, was suspected to be a key organizer. All three were linked to the Finsbury Park Mosque of north London. The allegations of al-Qaeda involvement were not repeated since then by the Russian government.
According to the Russian government, following people were named as planners and financiers of the attack:
• Shamil Basayev – Chechen rebel leader who took ultimate responsibility for the attack, he died in Ingushetia in July 2006 in disputed circumstances.
• Kamel Rabat Bouralha – British-Algerian suspected of organizing the attack, who was reported detained in Chechnya in September 2004.
• Abu Omar al-Saif – Saudi national and accused financer, killed in Dagestan in December 2005.
• Abu Zaid Al-Kuwaiti – Kuwaiti national and accused organizer, who died in Ingushetia in February 2005.
In November 2004, 28-year-old Akhmed Merzhoyev and 16-year-old Marina Korigova of Sagopshi, Ingushetia, were arrested by the Russian authorities in connection with Beslan. Merzhoyev was charged with providing food and equipment to the hostage-takers, and Korigova with having possession of a phone that Tsechoyev had phoned multiple times. Korigova was released when her defence attorney showed that she was given the phone by an acquaintance after the crisis.