Re: Beslan

[Chris Doss <lookoverhere1@xxxxxxxxx>]

What did I tell you?

Ethnic Tensions Heat Up in Ossetia

By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer

Police and troops were out in full force Tuesday in
North Ossetia and Ingushetia as the Beslan hostage
tragedy inflamed old hatred between regional ethnic
groups and raised the threat of war.

"All this was done by the Ingush and Chechens," Zalina
Budayeva, 48, said Tuesday at a memorial in the
burnt-out Beslan school gymnasium where more than 300
of some 1,000 hostages died.

"In general, Ossetians are good people, Christians,
and they are friends of the Russians," Budayeva said.
"The Ingush are taught to murder Ossetians since
childhood."

President Vladimir Putin warned after the school was
seized by a group of Chechen, Ingush, Ossetian and
Arab attackers last Wednesday that the crisis could
"explode" simmering tensions between the Ingush and
Ossetians, who waged a 1992 war over a disputed
district of North Ossetia.

Ingush families began fleeing the region as early as
Wednesday, Ekho Moskvy radio reported, citing its
listeners there.

They had good reason to flee. Ossetians' initial shock
about the school tragedy quickly turned to rage -- at
law enforcement agencies for failing to protect the
people, at the government for lying about the number
of hostages, and at their old rivals, the Ingush.

"We have fought the Ingush with weapons in our hands.
Today, our men are ready to go after them once again,"
Beslan resident Irina Parfiyeva said.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/09/08/003.html



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