The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) released a verdict on April 13 obliging Russia to pay victims and their relatives of the terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia around 3 million euros.
The attack took place back in September of 2004.
“The court ruled that Russia must pay the applicants a total of EUR 2.995 million in moral damages, as well as EUR 88,000 to the plaintiffs’ representatives as a reimbursement of court costs”, the court said in a press release.
409 plaintiffs signed onto the motion against Russia, including hostages of the attack.
The court agreed with plaintiffs that the Russian authorities had violated the right of their relatives to live –
Article
2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and ruled that they had failed to cope with the obligation to prevent a possible threat to the lives of people who died as a result in Beslan.
In addition, the court found that the Russian authorities failed to plan the assault in such a way as to minimize the threat of hostage-taking.
Also, the ECHR found redundancy in the use of force by Russian special forces and military personnel and ruled that the Russian authorities had been unable to secure an effective investigation into the incident.
The Kremlin does not agree
with the decision of the ECHR, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
He called the language of the court absolutely unacceptable, according to which Russia did not do enough to prevent a terrorist attack and minimize losses among hostages.
“Undoubtedly, we can not agree with such a formulation, a country that has repeatedly been attacked by terrorists”, Peskov stressed.
A group of terrorists numbering more than 30 people seized school number 1 in Beslan on the morning of September 1, 2004 during. Terrorists drove more than a thousand hostages into a sports hall, including young children. People were forcibly kept in school for three days without food or water and food. The operation to release the hostages began on September 3.
As a result, 335 people lost their lives in the tragedy, 186 of them children. The wounded were 810 hostages, special forces, militia and military personnel.
