Residents of the Russian town of Beslan, blaming authorities and still seething with anger, grieved silently on Saturday to mark the day a year ago when hundreds of their children were killed in a school siege.
President Vladimir Putin, who met Beslan parents on Friday to hear their accounts, on Saturday ordered prosecutors from Moscow to check official failings and chaos at the end of the siege by pro-Chechen militants that ended in a bloodbath.
Tearful residents held a minute's silence after filing through the town's shattered school on Saturday, adding wreaths to a vast floral memorial to the 331 people who died, mostly in an explosion, fire and shooting on the final day of the siege.
A list of the dead took 22 minutes to be read out and the streets of the town were empty with more than 12,000 people gathered for the final ceremony of three days of mourning.
Crying children released white balloons - one for each person that died - in tribute to those who perished. Orthodox priests comforted residents, who then moved in their thousands towards the cemetery where hundreds of white doves were released at a memorial.
A broad swathe of red carnations ran down the middle of the school's blackened sports hall, where the more than 1,000 children and parents were held by armed guerrillas demanding an independent Chechnya.
During the three days of mourning, Beslan residents have screamed anger at the authorities for failing to prevent the siege and official bungling. Parents have said they are enraged that no senior official has been brought to task for the muddled end to the siege.
Putin responded to that anger on Saturday at a meeting at his official residency outside Moscow, indicating that a third probe of the siege will be started by prosecutors in Moscow.
"They are disturbed that there is still no objective data about the course of the investigation. They are disturbed about what conditions allowed this to happen at all, " Putin told officials in televised comments.
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