A ceremony in memory of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is taking place at the memorial located on the site of the Twin Towers in New York. The ceremony was broadcast by all major American television networks.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attend the event. Trump and Harris shook hands before the ceremony began. Trump’s running mate James David Vance, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul also arrived to pay tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks.

During the ceremony, the names of the victims were read out by their families. The long list includes the names of victims born in countries of the former Soviet Union. According to official information, three Russians were killed at the time. According to unofficial estimates, 70 to 80 people from Russia or the Commonwealth of Independent S
tates (CIS) may have died in the attacks. Every year, the organizers allocate an increasing share of the list to young people and children born after the 2001 attacks, in order to ensure the continuity of the memory of the events of that day. The ceremony typically lasts three hours and is punctuated by several minutes of silence to mark key milestones in the events of September 11, 2001: the moments when the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, when another airliner hit the South Tower, when a plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, and when a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

In the evening, the city will hold a luminous tribute. Two beams of powerful searchlights will be directed towards the sky to symbolize the twin towers destroyed by the terrorists. This event has been organized since 2002. 44 searchlights are used to create columns of light visible up to 100 kilometers away.

On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists* hijacked four airliners in the United States. T
wo of them flew into the World Trade Center towers, the tallest buildings in New York at the time, and the third into the Pentagon in suburban Washington. A fourth plane also flew into the U.S. capital, but crashed near the town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The terrorist attacks killed 2,977 people.

Source: Burkina Information Agency