RUSSIAN MOTHER FACED SEPARATION FROM CHILD
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 6, 2004 (AP) -- Hour after hour Oksana Yuzhkeivich endured the moment-to-moment terror that she could die a violent death at any second. Then it got worse.

Unlike her fellow hostages squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder in the sweltering gymnasium at School No. 1, 30-year-old Oksana was forced out of the school carrying another woman's baby half-way into the three-day siege. She had to leave her daughter and mother behind in the school.

For an agonizing day, neither Oksana nor her mother, Raya, knew if each other or Oksana's 8-year-old daughter, Valeria, had survived the explosions and hours-long gunbattles that erupted when Russian security forces stormed the school on Friday, eventually ending the standoff.

``Do you know what that is like, thinking they'll shoot you? We were terrified. Absolutely terrified,'' Raya said Monday, burying her face in her hands.

The grandmother, daughter and child were among an estimated 1,100 hostages taken Wednesday when guerrillas demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya took over the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, and wired the gymnasium with explosives, hanging bombs from basketball hoops.

The death toll stood at 335 Monday. But Oksana, Raya and Valeria Yuzhkeivich were among the fortunate, escaping with only bruises -- the wounds to their psyches far more injurious.

On Wednesday, 55-year-old Raya had gathered with Oksana, Valeria and hundreds of others for the first day of school -- the children in new dresses and ties and suits, wearing new backpacks, carrying new pencils.

Raya, who works as a nanny, brought the two babies she was taking care of -- 10-month-old Diana and 18-month-old Azan.

The sudden sound of firecrackers added to the festive atmosphere, Raya says, until she saw the masked fighters wearing camouflage who burst into the courtyard firing guns and ordering everyone into the school.

Inside, the grandmother and her two young charges managed to find Oksana and Valeria. They huddled together. The hostage-takers fired into the air and demanded silence. Children continued crying.

The militants shot two men and threatened to shoot more if the hostages weren't quiet.
The night was sleepless and hot. The militants ignored pleas for water for the children. Little Diana began to look pale and weak.

``The conditions were awful, so awful,'' said Oksana, who would say little else of the terrifying experience.

On Thursday, sometime after midday, Raya said, the well-known former president of the neighboring region of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, appeared briefly at the door of the gym -- on a mission to win freedom for some of the hostages.

About two hours later, one of the fighters -- a Chechen, Raya said -- told all breast-feeding mothers and their children to leave the gym. They were herded into an adjacent room and given water. Raya had somehow been caught up in that group, carrying the two babies in her care.

``They pushed us all into the shower room. There must have been about 20 of us. Everyone thought they were going to kill us,'' Raya said.

Two militants then looked among the group. The youngest children were allowed to go, along with their mothers. Raya tried to leave with both babies -- Diana and Azan -- but the fighters said the boy was too old, and Raya was too old to be breast-feeding.

``At that moment, I thought only of the three children, my Valeria, the ones I was caring for. That's all I could think of. I couldn't leave them,'' she says.

Then the fighters, apparently thinking Oksana was Diana's mother, ordered the two into another room with other women and their children. It was Oksana and baby Diana who were among the 26 hostages freed after Aushev's visit.

Raya feared her daughter and Diana were being taken out to be shot. She, her granddaughter Valeria and the baby boy Azan endured nearly 24 more hours of torment in a room separate from the gymnasium.

For Oksana, freedom didn't end the torment.

``There was no choice. They wouldn't let my mother go. They wouldn't let my daughter go. Diana was sick,'' Oksana says.

When it was all over, baby Diana was been taken to relatives in the neighboring Stavropol region and Azan was taken to Moscow for an operation for wounds suffered on the last day.

``God helped us somehow,'' Raya said.

As Raya began crying again, granddaughter Valeria held up an pen-and-ink drawing she had made: a stick figure with long hair. Arrows pointed to the figure who was labeled with the words ``fighter'' and ``pistol.''

``See, he's saying 'Stay there or I'll shoot you,' Valeria says.

Source: NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Mothers-and-Children.html?pagewanted=print&position=)