Beslan children, parents, visit Pilsen

Around 70 Russian children and adults on recuperative stay in Karlovy Vary following the tragedy in Russia's Beslan visited the west Bohemian town of Pilsen on Sunday. Visiting sites included Pilsen's zoo. Most of the children and parents invited for the four-week stay in the Czech Republic lost friends or loved ones in the hostage-taking and terrorist stand-off in Beslan, in September, in which terrorists killed 330 people. Of those, 172 were children.

Czech specialists say the children on stay in Karlovy Vary have adapted well, but continue to show deeply-ingrained trauma, evident in their drawings of bombs, graves, and war.

One of the parents told the press on Sunday that returning home would be difficult, that parents would once again fear for their children there.