Following a suicide attack Monday in Nazran, Ingushetia, which killed more than 20 people and injured scores of others, including children, World Vision Russian Federation has provided urgently needed medical supplies to the central hospital, which also sustained damage.

A scene of utter devastation remained when the dust settled following the blast which targeted the police station. But innocent civilians and bystanders also took the force of the blow leaving many with terrible burns and wounds from scattered glass. Others are still missing.

With the hospital and other health facilities stretched to their limit World Vision responded to an urgent plea for assistance by providing painkillers, antibiotics, infusion therapy supplies, ointments, bandage materials and syringes valued at US$2,000; purchased with funds from World Vision in Germany.

Zarema Buzurtanova, the World Vision Medical Assistant who conducted a rapid assessment in the central hospital was shocked at what she saw there.

'I shivered at the sight of possible relatives approaching the bodies and timidly raising the sheets covering them, in the hope that they would not recognize their missing ones. Only witnessing this scene, my heart shrank. I cannot find words, and is it really necessary? I do think so – it is indeed necessary to convey those feelings which lead not only to empathy, but to humanitarian help to those in need'.

'Мum, why did we come back?' mumbled Lida M., a 12-year old girl who was wounded in the blast. Lida and her family had fled from Ingushetia to Germany as a result of the ongoing violence in the republic but had returned in the hope that life would be more peaceful.

But in recent years, this republic in the Russian North Caucasus, home to only half a million people, has seen increasing manifestations of violence, including terrorist attacks, murders and special operations. Life here is far from 'normal', let alone peaceful.

World Vision has been implementing medical, psychosocial, educational, peace-building and economic recovery projects in Ingushetia and other republics of the North Caucasus since 1995.

In the coming days, local staff will distribute additional emergency medical supplies, valued at around US$8,000, also funded by World Vision Germany, to Ingushetia's health structures.

-Ends-