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Wreaths in memory of the dead in front of the ruins of School No. 1's gymnasium. The hostages were imprisoned here for three days
Confidence instead of nightmares: how children in Beslan overcame their trauma
On 1 September 2004, the first day of the new school year, armed assailants seized School Number 1 in Beslan, taking more than 1000 hostages, most of them schoolchildren but also teachers and parents with infants who had accompanied the children to school on their first day.
The school was stormed after a three-day siege. According to official sources, 334 hostages were killed and over 750 people injured. The hostages who survived – and especially the children – were deeply traumatized. They had seen people shot and watched their friends dying in a hail of bullets or blown to bits by bombs.
A programme for everybody
The SDC programme for Beslan siege victims, which began a few weeks after the tragedy, was designed to help the town's children and young people overcome their trauma and make a fresh start on peaceful lives. The programme was open to all, irrespective of whether or not they were in School No. 1, because everybody lived with the fear that it could have happened to them.
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According to a local psychologist, 90 percent of children in Beslan have been able to work through their trauma.