( AFP ) - Tears fell and angry questions rang out on Saturday as Russia marked the third anniversary of the Beslan school hostage crisis that left 332 people dead, more than half of them children.
The central memorial event opened with the tolling of bells at the ruins of the school in this small town in the republic of North Ossetia, where hostage-takers demanding Russian withdrawal from Chechnya seized over 1,000 hostages on September 1, 2004.
Funereal music played while over 3,000 mourners gathered under heavy guard outside the school, holding candles and laying flowers in the burnt-out husk of the gymnasium where the hostages were held.
Portraits of victims lined the scarred walls of the gymnasium, as did angry signs reflecting the emotional and political turmoil the crisis's bloody aftermath still provokes here.
"There is no forgiveness for the authorities for allowing Beslan," one said. "The federal security service and interior ministry are responsible for terror," read another.
Victims' relatives and many ordinary Russians believe the authorities covered up the actual events on September 3, 2004, when federal troops stormed the school and a firefight with the hostage-takers killed hundreds.
Three years after the attack, there is fury that virtually no one, other than the sole surviving hostage-taker, has been punished.
Susanna Dudiyeva, who lost her 13-year-old son in the attack and heads the Beslan Mothers Committee, told AFP: "Three years after the attack, there are fewer of us, but we will still find the truth."
Politicians Boris Gryzlov, who heads the party of power United Russia, and regional presidential representative Dmitry Kozak laid flowers in the school and were expected to speak later.
Dudiyeva said the Beslan Mothers Committee had demanded meetings with both politicians and would organise a protest if they refused.
Russian newspapers and independent investigators have publicised a series of blunders on the part of federal and local authorities -- ranging from failing to act on intelligence to botching the rescue attempt -- but to little effect.
Three local policemen were found guilty of negligence, but they were granted amnesty earlier this year.
Officials contend that the hostage-takers set off a bomb inside the school, forcing troops to intervene.
But many survivors and independent investigators say soldiers deliberately started the battle with an incendiary rocket-propelled grenade -- a highly destructive weapon that brought down part of the school's roof, started a fierce fire, and instantly claimed many of the victims.
Many witnesses also say they saw tanks fire shells into the school, something again that officials deny happened.
A separate memorial event was planned for later Saturday in Moscow.