Russian mother forced to chose between two children at the school in Beslan last week.
“They said, ‘Pack your things quickly, and take your babies with you,’ ” Dzandarova said.
Shortly after, she learned that she would have to choose between taking her son or her daughter.
Dzandarova had both Alan [2] and Alana [6] with her and made a snap decision to pass Alana to her 16-year-old sister-in-law. But the guerrillas saw through the ruse and refused to allow her to take the older child.
“Alana was clinging to me and holding my hand firmly. But they separated us, and said: ‘You go with the boy. Your sister can stay here with her.’ I cried. I begged them. Alana cried. The women around us wept. One of the Chechens said: ‘If you don’t go now, you don’t go at all. You stay here with your children … and we will shoot all of you.’ ”
She couldn’t save both of them. She could only die with both of them — or save one of them and herself.
“I didn’t have time to think what I was doing,” she said. “I pressed Alan even stronger to myself, and I went out, and I heard all the time how my daughter was crying and calling for me behind my back. I thought my heart would break into pieces there and then.”
Article from Friday’s Los Angeles Times.
Link via Body and Soul, which has much, much more.