Children of Beslan" is now the name of a municipal park in the city of Rovereto, located in the northern Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige. The day before, a solemn ceremony was held there, during which the mayor of Rovereto, Francesco Valduga, the Consul General of the Russian Federation in Milan, Dmitry Shtodin, the president of the charity association "Help us Save the Children", honorary citizen of Beslan Ennio Bordato and the head of the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Rome, Dariya Pushkova, opened a memorial plaque with the new name of the park, which is designed to preserve the memory of the innocent victims of the Beslan tragedy.
The terrorist attack in Beslan occurred on the morning of September 1, 2004. Terrorists seized the city school in No. 1 during the festive line - up. More than 1,200 people, most of them children, were taken hostage at the time. People were forcibly kept in school for three days, not given food and restricted in water. The victims of the Beslan tragedy were 334 people, including 186 children.
"In this place, where the joy of the little ones freely manifests itself, we want to keep alive the memory of those who were robbed of their lives, so that new generations will know about what happened and always remember the value of peace," reads the memorial plaque installed in the Rovereto Park.
Speaking at the ceremony, Dmitry Shtodin has recalled that representatives of a number of Italian cities were among the first to respond to the pain of Beslan and in September 2004 offered to provide humanitarian assistance and host families who had suffered during the tragic events. "It is worth a lot. Russia remembers this, and I am sure it will remain in our collective memory. The fact that in Italy streets and parks are named in memory of the perished children of Beslan speaks volumes," said the Consul General.
Ennio Bordato founded the charitable association "Help Us Save the Children" in 2001 to help minors who are in a difficult situation in Russia and in the countries with a Russian-speaking population. Recently, he was involved in the implementation of a large medical project in the Arkhangelsk region and the provision of humanitarian assistance to the population of Donbass, for which he was awarded the medal "Participant of the humanitarian convoy".
In 2015, in the northern Italian town of Campo San Martino, one of the central streets was named after the children of Beslan. In 2006, in the small Republic of San Marino, located on the Apennine Peninsula, was erected a monument to the victims of Beslan - a bronze statue depicting a half-naked, frightened boy, nicknamed by the locals "The Scream of Beslan".
