原文：Life after the Beslan School Siege
In the Russian republic of North Ossetia, the only man to go on trial for the Beslan school siege, has been giving evidence in court. Nurpashi Kulayev has pleaded not guilty to charges including murder, terrorism and banditry.
More than three hundred people -- mostly children -- died in the siege last September.
Chloe Arnold has been meeting some of the survivors in Beslan and those trying to help them.
Valera Murtazov can't sleep at night any more. When he closes his eyes, all he can see are the faces of the hundreds of children, trapped in the gym at Beslan's school number 1, where they were held for three days without food and water.
"I try to block it out," he says. "I try to think about other things, like how lucky I am that my own three children survived. But their cries just keep coming to me, and I'm plagued with guilt that I couldn't save more of them."
We are sitting in Valera's kitchen, drinking tea and eating slices of salty white cheese. Next door, his mother is dusting photographs of her three grandchildren, who were among the hundreds of parents, teachers and children herded into the gym by gunmen that fateful day.
Valera's children aren't in Beslan any more. They've travelled to Moscow with their mother, to receive psychiatric treatment. The twins are five years old, and their elder sister is eight. All still have nightmares about what went on inside the school last September.
"Our twins weren't even supposed to be there," Valera says, shaking his head. 「But they'd begged their parents to take them to the school on September 1st, the first day of the new school year. They wore their best clothes on what is traditionally a day of celebration in Russia, and the girls had ribbons in their hair.」
「There was an air of festivity as they approached the playground, which was hung with bunting and balloons. But moments later,」 Valera remembers, 「a group of masked men appeared, shouting and waving guns and ordering everyone into the gym.」
For the next 52 hours, the hostages were forced to sit on the ground, denied food, water and even the right to speak to each other. Valera recalls many of the parents begging their children to urinate into their shoes and then drink it, for fear they pass out in the stifling hall.
With television crews covering the siege 24 hours a day, the world watched the events unfold in shock and disbelief. Since then, humanitarian aid has poured into this sleepy little town -- bicycles from Italy, clothes and shoes from the United States, toys from western Europe. The Bulgarian government has offered children who survived the siege holidays in its Black Sea resorts.
譯文：人質事件——別斯蘭人揮不去的夢魘
在俄羅斯北奧塞梯共和國，唯一一名因別斯蘭學校人質事件而受審的人正出庭辯護。
諾爾帕什·庫拉耶夫否認了對自己的犯罪指控，包括謀殺、恐怖主義和強盜罪行。有超過三百人，其中多數是孩子，在去年九月的人質事件中遇難。克洛伊·阿諾德近日一直在別斯蘭訪問一些倖存者和那些正在為他們提供幫助的人。
瓦勒拉·穆爾塔佐夫夜不能寐。每當閉上眼睛，他看到的就是那數百名孩子的臉，他們被困在別斯蘭第一學校的體育館內，不吃不喝長達三天之久。
「我努力不想這些，」他說，「我努力想其他東西，例如我是何等幸運，自己的三個孩子都倖存下來了。但是他們的哭聲一直迴響在我耳邊，我為自己沒能多救出些孩子而有一種負罪感。」
我們坐在瓦勒拉的廚房內，一邊喝茶，一邊吃著鹹味兒的白奶酪片。在隔壁，他的母親正在擦自己三個孫子照片上的灰塵，在那決定生死的一天，數百名家長、老師和孩子被槍手們圍困在體育館裡時，這三個孩子也在他們當中。
瓦勒拉的孩子現在不在別斯蘭。他們和母親一起去莫斯科接受心理治療去了。兩個雙胞胎今年五歲，他們的姐姐今年八歲。他們都還時常夢見去年九月發生在校園裡的那一幕。
「我的兩個雙胞胎小傢伙本不應該在那兒，」瓦勒拉一邊搖頭一邊說。「但是他們央求父母在九月一號，新學期開學的第一天，帶他們去學校。在這個俄羅斯傳統上值得慶祝的一天，他們穿上了自己最好的衣服，女孩兒還在頭髮上紮上了絲帶。」
「在他們趕往掛滿了彩旗和氣球的操場時，有一種節日的氣氛。但是沒過多久，」瓦勒拉回憶說，「一群頭帶面具的人出現了，他們叫嚷著，揮舞著槍，命令所有的人都進到體育館裡。」
在接下來的52小時裡，這些人質被強迫坐在地上，不給食物不給水，甚至不讓他們相互交談。瓦勒拉回憶說，許多家長讓自己的孩子把尿撒到鞋裡，然後喝掉，因為他們害怕孩子們會在這令人窒息的大廳裡昏過去。
在電視記者每天24小時對人質事件進行報導時，全世界的人們都懷著震驚和懷疑的態度關注著事態的發展。從那時起，人道主義援助一直源源不斷地被運到這個沉寂的小鎮——從義大利運來了自行車，從美國運來了衣物和靯，從西歐運來了玩具。保加利亞政府還為在事件中倖存的孩子們提供了到黑海度假的機會。
(責任編輯：張豔)