"The third anniversary of the Beslan tragedy, a base terrorist attack committed against children, is the occasion to commemorate the 331 victims, over a half of whom were children". Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, speaks on the anniversary of the tragedy of the Beslan school. In the city of northern Ossetia, an independent region of the Russian Federation, from 1st to 3rd September 2004 a group of terrorists (then found to be Chechen separatists and Islamic extremists) took hostage 1,300 people in a school; on the third day, the government decided to have a special taskforce from Moscow break into the school, resulting in the release of pupils and teachers, with a large number of hostages dead and 700 people injured. Davis adds: "In my name and on behalf of the Council of Europe, I would like to send once again a message of sympathy and understanding to the victims’ families and to the whole population of Russia". Then he highlights the need to "reassert our determination to fight terrorism and defeat it. This is possible if we act together and in the right way".
