(2 Sep 2009) SHOTLIST
1. Wide pan of candles being lit during night vigil for victims of Beslan school attack
2. Various of candles being lit
3. Grieving woman leaning on fence
4. Pan from former Beslan school hostage, Toma Dzakoyeva to candles
5. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Toma Dzakoyeva, former Beslan school hostage, 20 years old:
"I miss my classmates (who died in the siege). It's been five years, but still I remember them all the time. It is hard without them, we studied together for so many years, for eight years. It is hard."
6. Grieving women walking through school with makeshift shrine in background
7. Various of people lighting candles
STORYLINE
Wailing mothers and anguished relatives on Tuesday marked the fifth anniversary of Russia's worst militant attack, mourning the hundreds killed at Beslan's School No. 1 and haunted by questions over the botched rescue attempt.
Scores of people filed through the ravaged shell of the school's gymnasium, lighting candles, laying carnations and offering bottles of water to the victims of the 2004 attack, which saw 32 heavily armed militants hold more than 1,000 people hostage for nearly three days.
The ordeal ended on September 3, 2004, in a disastrous rescue attempt by Russian special forces that resulted in the deaths of 334 people, more than half of them children, in the North Caucasus town.
In the Beslan gymnasium, photographs of the children who were killed hung from walls below charred timbers and the remains of two basketball hoops.
On Tuesday evening, 334 candles were lit in the school's yard in memory of those who died in the siege.
Fiver years on, the pain has not eased for 20-year-old survivor Toma Dzakoyeva. "I miss my classmates (who died in the siege). It's been five years, but still I remember them all the time. It is hard without them, we studied together for so many years, for eight years. It is hard," she said.
Relatives and prominent human rights activists say the September 3 rescue operation went horribly awry, with many victims dying from crossfire, accidental explosions and possibly even heavy weaponry such as flame-throwers wielded by federal forces.
Officials say the explosion that sparked the maelstrom on the third day were set off accidentally by the militants themselves.
But relatives of the dead say government snipers may have killed one of the militants holding a bomb trigger, setting off a cascade of violence.
The only attacker known to have survived, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, was sentenced to life in prison in 2006.
The Beslan attack shook Russia deeply and prompted then-President Vladimir Putin to push through sweeping changes to the country's electoral system, tightening the Kremlin's grip on power.
A recent upsurge in violence across Russia's North Caucasus, however has undermined the Kremlin's claims it is bringing stability to the region.
Underscoring the problem authorities face, a passer-by was killed and 13 people injured on Tuesday when a man detonated explosives in a car at a traffic police post in nearby Dagestan.

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