By Albina Olisayeva
Category Nation/CIS
Source RIA Novosti

BESLAN — About 2,000 mourners, including a large number of children and teenagers, gathered this morning in the yard of school no.1 in Beslan to remember the hostage-taking tragedy that started on September 1 last year.

People are still arriving at the scene, carrying flowers, wreaths, candles, and photographs of their lost relatives.

Two black granite slabs with water flowing over them as a symbol of never-ending tears have been put up at the entrance to the school gym, where the hostages were kept for three days. The walls are covered with three rows of photographs of the victims.

People in the gym - men, women and journalists - are all sobbing. Some women felt unwell and are receiving medical assistance.

No photographers or cameramen have been allowed into the gym.

Taimuraz Mamsurov, the president of North Ossetia, a North Caucasus republic within the Russian federation, and Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, have laid flowers at the site.

It is incredibly quiet in Beslan this morning. People carrying flowers meet in the streets to walk to the school together.