Photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Russia failed to prevent a school siege in Beslan in 2004, in which more than 330 people died.

The operation to end the siege, with the use of heavy weaponry, and the investigation that followed have also been strongly criticised.

The Court concluded that the use of lethal force by security forces had contributed, to some extent, to the casualties among the hostages.

The Court held that Russia had failed to set up an effective legal framework of safeguards against arbitrariness and the use of force, since the applicable legislation had failed to set the most important principles and constraints of the use of force in lawful anti-terrorist operations.

The Court held that Russia was to pay the applicants a total of 2,955,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and the applicants’ representatives a total of EUR 88,000 in respect of costs. The individual awards to the applicants took account of the extent of their suffering and of the measures taken by Russia with the aim of compensating and rehabilitating the victims.

The case concerns a terrorist attack on a school building in the city of Beslan, North Ossetia in September 2004.

In the siege, Chechen rebels took more than 1,000 hostages, mostly children.

It ended when Russian forces stormed the building. Survivors say the troops used excessive force.

For more than a decade, survivors and relatives have been asking whether the siege could have been prevented and whether so many people had to die in the rescue operation. So more than 400 of them applied to the European Court of Human Rights.