Reactions to Crisis in Beslan

Ireland
Archbishop Sean Brady, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has sent a letter of condolence to victims in the atrocities held during the three-day battle in Beslan.

In a letter to Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz. the Catholic Archbishop Of Moscow, Archbishop Brady stated: "The taking of innocent life is never acceptable and when the victims are involuntarily involved - and especially when they include children - such acts of violence are totally reprehensible and shocking."

Also, Belfast City Hall has opened a book of Condolence to be sent to victims and families of the Beslan hostage crisis in Beslan.

"The people of Belfast are only too familiar with the terrible legacy of terrorist atrocities, and our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Beslan, and particularly those many, many parents who have lost children in this heinous atrocity," said Belfast Lord Mayor Tom Ekin.

Germany
Meanwhile, mixed reactions of the hostage siege have been sparked between Christian and Muslim leaders in Germany.

Bishop Wolfgang Huber, chairman of the council of the mainline Protestant Churches in Germany representing 26 million Protestants, said: “Whoever takes children as hostages, attacks women, separates fathers from their families and brings death to hundreds of innocent people cannot claim to act in the name of God – any God.” He urged all Muslims to distance themselves from all acts of terrorism.

The allegation that Muslims in Germany bring violence in the name of Islam was rejected by Nadeem Elyas, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany. “It would only make sense if the chairman of the Council of the Protestant Churches in Germany could name but one renowned Muslim organisation which has not distanced itself from terrorism”. Elyas advised Huber not to criticise the Muslims in Germany, which make up 3.1 million believers in Germany

Russia
In Moscow, tens of thousands of Russians massed outside the Kremlin to rally against terrorism as mourners lowered caskets into the damp earth at a Beslan cemetery four days after the school siege that claimed more than 350 lives.

"I have been crying for so many days and I came here to feel that we are actually together," said Vera Danilina, 57.

Meanwhile, the streets of the southern town of Beslan were crowded with funeral processions, and mourners gathered at the muddy cemetery to bury children with their favorite toys.

President Vladimir Putin has called for unity in vast, multiethnic Russia and sought to rally its people against enemies he says have aid from abroad.

Putin also angrily denied his government should overhaul its policy on the Chechnya because of the past two weeks of attacks.

The world should have "no more questions about our policy in Chechnya" after the attackers shot children in the back, he said in an interview late Monday with foreign journalists and academics. He said the Chechen militant cause was aimed at fomenting conflict in volatile southern Russia and breaking up the country.

"This is all about Russia's territorial integrity," he was quoted as saying.

Putin also said his government would conduct an internal investigation but no public probe into the hostage-taking raid at School No. 1 in Beslan in the North Ossetia region bordering Chechnya, warning that a parliamentary probe could turn into "a political show."

A brutal historic rivalry exists in Russia, which sees the Christian Orthodox Ossetians against Muslims of Ingushetia and Chechnya to the east.

President Vladimir Putin has vowed to prevent the hostage crisis from sparking a new conflict in the Caucasus. Local Orthodox Church officials say the same.

"At a moment of such grief, a person's soul opens, and people look at questions in a more spiritual way," says Father Sergei Maltsev, who runs Beslan's small church. "There is a political problem here. We try to solve it with things that unite us, not what divides us."

But this event is reopening a violent history between Ossetia and its Muslim neighbours of Chechnya and Ingushetia.