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A tribute to the victims, in 2007, in the gymnasium of the Beslan school, burned during the assault of the Russian forces against the kidnappers. REUTERS / Eduard Korniyenko

It was fifteen years ago. On September 1, 2004, the day of the return to school in Russia, an Islamist commando composed of Chechens and Ingushes broke into a school in North Ossetia, the Russian Caucasus republic. The locality of Beslan circumnavigates the international media: 1,200 people are held hostage, a captivity that will last 52 hours. On September 3rd, a double explosion inside the gym sows panic and creates confusion. Russian special forces launch the assault. At the end of the operation, the human toll is immense: 333 dead, including 186 children. Fifteen years later, the Beslan tragedy is still in shadow and retrospection is still very difficult in Russia.

With our correspondent Moscow, Étienne Bouche

The memory of Beslan plunges the Russians back to the early 2000s, at a time when terrorist attacks followed each other. Fifteen years later, the editorial staff of the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta returns to the facts through a documentary film.

The journalist Olga Bobrova is at the origin of the project. " We are aware that a new generation of young people has emerged who have not seen Beslan in the news and who do not have the opportunity to hear about it today on TV, " she says. Because believe me, September 3, it will be the fourth, or even the fifth news on federal channels and it will be enough to mention tributes to the victims. That's all. "

No public channel has even agreed to give access to its archives. Russian power seems reluctant to revisit this ill-timed past at a time when stability is the ideological backbone of the state.

The reporter Elena Milachina is the best connoisseur of Beslan, she was there in 2004 and lived there afterwards. This is, according to her, the first film telling the truth about this case.

" Today's Russia comes from Beslan, " she says. That's when people gave up their freedom in return for the promise of security. Except they did not get this security of power. "

According to the independent polling institute Levada, half of the Russians attribute responsibility for the tragedy to terrorists. One third believes that Russian special services share this responsibility.

In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had condemned Russia to pay more than three million euros to 409 applicants, former hostages wounded and close to the victims.