LAT, follow-up: In Rush of Joy and Guilt, (Russian) Mother Regains Child

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT story posted yesterday:

Killers Set Terms, a Mother Chooses (mothers, babies free, if sibling left)

Militants offer a woman and her baby freedom -- but only if she leaves her other child behind.

By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer

BESLAN, Russia — Zalina Dzandarova cradles her son Alan as he sleeps with his small face buried against her stomach. He is the child Dzandarova was able to save. The child she chose to save, really.

It is the other one, little Alana, her 6-year-old daughter, whose image torments her: Alana clutching her hand, Alana crying and calling after her. Alana's sobs disappearing into the distance as Dzandarova walked out of Middle School No. 1 here Thursday, clutching 2-year-old Alan in her arms.

Guerrillas armed with automatic rifles and explosive belts who are holding hundreds of hostages at the small provincial school in southern Russia allowed 26 women and children to leave. About a dozen mothers, like Dzandarova, were allowed to take only one child, forced to leave another behind....

***

Violence often selects its victims randomly, but seldom is a mother asked to make a Sophie's choice: Save one child and leave behind another, possibly to face death. The standoff in North Ossetia republic involving about 20 guerrillas — most likely linked to the neighboring separatist republic of Chechnya or adjacent Ingushetia — has stunned a nation accustomed to war and its horrors after the many ethnic and territorial conflicts that accompanied the breakup of the Soviet Union....


Today's story:

In Rush of Joy and Guilt, a Mother Regains Her Child
Zalina Dzandarova finds her daughter safe after the school assault ends but is haunted by her choice to leave the girl and save her son.

By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer

BESLAN, Russia — For the first time in 24 hours, Zalina Dzandarova stopped feeling dead inside Friday. She had her daughter back — covered with blood, and suffering from shock and dehydration. But alive.

A day earlier, hostage-takers had forced the 27-year-old mother of two to leave the sobbing 6-year-old behind at Middle School No. 1. Only if she abandoned Alana, they told her, could Dzandarova carry her 2-year-old son, Alan, with her to freedom.

Haunted by the choice, Dzandarova spent Thursday night imagining what was happening to Alana in the school gymnasium with about 1,000 other terrified children and parents. She blamed herself for her child's ordeal.

"I know that I will never be able to forget this," she said. "I will never be the same."

Alana told her mother that a fellow hostage, a 15-year-old boy, saved her from the gymnasium after the militants' explosives detonated and set it on fire....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mother4sep04,1,819031.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[lostnfound]

1. Thank you so much for posting this.

I have been so haunted by this story.

[MaryH]

2. Me, too.

I am glad to her that the little girl was saved. I kept wondering if we would ever hear the end of the story.

This whole things was just the saddest story.

[acmavm]

3. She was saved by a 15 year old boy. That boy deserves a lot of praise

for making the effort to stop and help another child when I'm sure that the normal reaction would be just to get the hell out of there. He took the risk of helping a little girl escape. Have to admire the kid.

[sandraj]

4. What an ordeal

for everyone involved, coming face-to-face with a parent's worst fear in such a violent way. I'm glad this mother and daughter were reunited and hope that eventually they can heal from this hellish experience.

[Darth_Kitten]

6. What a choice.....

people may choose to flame me for this, but if I were a parent I could never leave....not whilst any baby of mine was in there. :( I just couldn't, I don't know. :(

Of course, what a horrendous situation...Very terrible. :(

[wickywom]

5. thanks

I've been thinking about this since yesterday and was hoping there would be word today.
I hope their sanity will somehow survive this--

[the Kelly Gang]

7. God bless her and all the other poor parents