FAMILIES READ OFF 9/11 LIST OF DEAD
AMERICANS have remembered 9/11 with readings of victims’ names, volunteer work and other tributes 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on US soil.
A tolling bell and moment of silence began the commemoration at ground zero in New York, where the World Trade Centre’s twin towers were destroyed by hijacked-plane attacks on September 11, 2001.
Victims’ relatives and dignitaries also convened at the two other attack sites — the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
Some Americans are joining in volunteer projects on a day federally recognised as both Patriot Day and a national day of service and remembrance.
It came weeks after the chaotic and humbling end of the Afghanistan war that the US launched in response to the attacks.
But if this September 11 may be less of an inflection point, it remains a point for reflection on the attack that killed nearly 3,000 people, spurred a US-led “war on terror” worldwide and reconfigured national security policy.
It also stirred — for a time — a sense of national pride and unity for many, while subjecting Muslim Americans to years of suspicion and bigotry and engendering debate over the balance between safety and civil liberties.
Tower
More than 70 of Sekou Siby’s co-workers perished at Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the trade centre’s north tower.
Mr Siby had been scheduled to work that morning until another cook asked him to switch shifts. He never took a restaurant job again; it brought back too many memories.
The Ivorian immigrant wrestled with how to comprehend such horror.
It was too painful, he had learned, to become attached to people when “you have no control over what’s going to happen to them next”.
“Every 9/11 is a reminder of what I lost that I can never recover,” said Mr Siby.