Twenty years after the end of the siege that killed 333 people, the echoes of brutality in North Caucasus still resonate, offering parallels with the war in Ukraine
The first thing I saw as I approached the school was four bodies under a sheet, the feet poking from underneath still domed and plump, so young were the victims.
A few metres away, a man in shredded clothes was curled in a ball, gibbering in terror. Soon I would look on as a woman outside the town hospital was told her child had died in the gymnasium. She let out a cry of grief like a wounded animal and fell to the ground. It was a moment that would haunt my dreams for years to come.
