Beslan, Russia ? Wailing and pounding their hands on dirt graves, hundreds of people dressed in black marked the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period for the children and adults killed after terrorists seized a school on the first day of classes.

Fears are rising that grief may give way to violence by the mostly Ossetian residents against the Ingush, a rival ethnic group whose members were among the raiders who took control of School No. 1.

Top federal and regional officials have appealed for calm, but seething anger is replacing sorrow in North Ossetia, the republic in southern Russia where Beslan is located.

“I can promise you there will be violence,” said a 47-year-old man outside the school who gave only his first name, Ruslan. “(The Ingush) are all bandits.”

The school’s shattered remains yet again became the epicenter for the anguish of those whose relatives and friends died in the Sept. 1-3 siege. The corridors of the school — rank with mildew and smoke, and rife with angry graffiti — rang with sobbing.

In the surrounding streets, families set up long tables and lit bonfires for mourning meals. Grief-stricken families could be identified by their men, wearing beards that they planned to shave after 40 days.

Some Ossetians have vowed to seek revenge on the Ingush for the deaths of nearly 340 victims at School No. 1. The hostage-takers, apparently acting under orders from Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, included some Ingush.

Unidentified women cry while visiting School No.1 in Beslan, Russia. Residents of this grief-stricken southern city on Tuesday marked the end of the formal, 40-day mourning period since the climax to the hostage-taking Sept 3 when hundreds of children died.

Officials fear a repeat of the 10-day war fought between Ossetians and Ingush in the fall of 1992 over land rights. Ingush tried to return to their homes a half-century after being exiled together with the Chechens under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Thousands of Ingush live in squalid settlements and refugee camps along the border between North Ossetia and Ingushetia. Those in North Ossetia are subject to harassment, discrimination and, after Beslan, death threats.