Tears, angry questions and suspicions of a cover-up mark the third anniversary of the Beslan school hostage crisis that left 332 people dead, more than half of them children.

The central memorial event opened with bells being tolled at the ruins of the school in this small town in the republic of North Ossetia, where hostage-takers demanding Russian withdrawal from Chechnya seized over 1,000 hostages on September 1, 2004. On September 3 federal troops stormed the school and a firefight with the hostage-takers left hundreds dead.

Funereal music played while over 3,000 mourners gathered, holding candles and laying flowers in the gymnasium where the hostages were held.

The Beslan Mothers Committee demanded that President Vladimir Putin apologize to the 186 children killed in the massacre.

"Come to the graveyard in the final year of your leadership and say: 'Forgive us, children, we sacrificed you for the safety of millions of other Russian children. We couldn't defeat terrorism in Russia in any other way.'"

Three years since the massacre, there is anger that virtually the only person to have been punished is the sole surviving hostage-taker.

Journalists and independent investigators have exposed a series of blunders on the part of federal and local authorities -- ranging from failing to act on intelligence to botching the rescue attempt -- but to little effect.

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