2005 Photo Contest, General News, 1st prize
Photographer

James Hill

The New York Times

15 September, 2004

Two boys stand in an empty corridor at School Number Six, just a few hundred meters from School Number One. When the school re-opened on 15 September, two weeks after the crisis, most pupils stayed away. Schools were shut down for two weeks following the violent ending of a three-day siege, in which separatists demanding independence for Chechnya held over 1,000 pupils, parents and teachers of School Number One hostage. More than 330 people lost their lives. School Number One became a shrine to the victims of the siege. Officials decided not to re-open it, but to build two new schools for the pupils who had studied there.

About the photographer

James Hill

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