(New York) Americans commemorate the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks by solemn ceremonies, volunteer actions and other tributes in tribute to the victims.
Many close to nearly 3000 people killed will join dignitaries and political leaders during commemorations Thursday in New York, Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Others will choose to celebrate this day during more intimate rallies.
James Lynch, who lost his father, Robert Lynch, during the World Trade Center attack, explained that his family and would attend a ceremony near their hometown, New Jersey, before spending the day at the beach.
“This is the kind of moment when sorrow, whatever it is, never disappears,” said Lynch while he, his partner and his mother joined thousands of volunteers preparing meals for the poorest during a charity event organized in Manhattan the day before the birthday. “Finding joy in this mourning A, I think, played a major role in my evolution. »»
Photo Jeenah Moon, Reuters
A woman collects herself in front of the reflective basin of the September 11 memorial and museum in New York.
These commemorations take place in a context of increased political tensions. The anniversary of September 11, often presented as a day of national unity, intervenes the day after the death by the conservative activist Charlie Kirk when he was expressed in a University of Utah.
Read the names and observe minutes of silence
Charlie Kirk’s assassination is expected to lead to additional security measures around the anniversary ceremony of September 11 on the World Trade Center website in New York, the authorities said.
At the Ground Zero, in the Lower Manhattan, the names of the victims of the attacks will be read aloud by their families and their loved ones during a ceremony which will assist the vice-president JD Vance and his wife, the second lady Usha Vance. Minutes of silence will commemorate the exact moments when the diverted planes struck the emblematic twin rounds of the World Trade Center, as well as the collapse of the skyscrapers.
In Pentagon, Virginia, the 184 soldiers and civilians killed when air pirates led an airliner to the American army headquarters will be honored. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will attend the ceremony before going to the Bronx for a baseball match between New York Yankees and Tigers de Detroit on Thursday evening.
In a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a similar ceremony, marked by minutes of silence, reading the names and the wreath laying, will honor the victims of flight 93, the diverted plane that crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. The secretary of veterans, Doug Collins, will attend this ceremony.
Like Lynch, citizens from all over the country also commemorate the anniversary of September 11 by service projects and charitable works as part of a national service day. Volunteers will participate in food and clothing collections, cleaning parks and neighborhoods, blood banks and other community events.
The repercussions of the attacks persist
In total, the attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda activists left 2,977 people, including many finance employees of the World Trade Center, as well as firefighters and police who had rushed into fire buildings to try to save lives.
These attacks have had global repercussions and have changed the course of American policy, both internally and international. They led to the “world war against terrorism”, to American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to related conflicts which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
While the air pirates died during the attacks, the United States government struggles to conclude its long trial against the man accused of having orchestrated the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former Al Qaeda chief was arrested in Pakistan in 2003, then taken to an American military base in Guantánamo, Cuba, but was never tried. The birthday ceremony in New York took place at the Memorial and National Museum of September 11, where two commemorative basins, surrounded by waterfalls and parapets bearing the names of the dead, mark the location of the twin towers.
The Trump administration studies the means by which the federal government could take control of the commemorative place and its underground museum, now managed by a public charitable association chaired by the former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, a frequent critic from Donald Trump. The latter spoke of the possibility of making the site a national monument.
Since the attacks, the United States government has spent billions of US dollars to provide health care and compensate tens of thousands of people exposed to toxic dust that has spread on certain parts of Manhattan during the collapse of twin towers.
More than 140,000 people are still registered with surveillance programs aimed at identifying people with health problems potentially linked to dangerous substances contained in the soot.
The journalists of the Associated Press, Michael Hill in Albany (New York) and Darlene Superville in Washington, contributed to this article
