Two new schools open in Beslan

August 17, 2005 Two new schools have opened in the North Ossetian town of Beslan to replace School Number One that was destroyed in the Beslan school siege.

The mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, attended the opening ceremony and symbolically handed over the keys to the buildings to the school directors. He said the construction of the schools is part of a general plan to help rebuild Beslan and hoped that "children go to school with a feeling that will help them in life in the future".

The construction was financed by the Russian government. The two schools, totalling 36,000 square meters, will house 600 pupils each. The first day of school in the new buildings will be on September 5th, 2005.

Beslan's School Number One was seized by terrorists in September 2004. The 3-day standoff claimed the lifes of 344 people, 172 of them children.