My 9/11 Memorial Experience

September 11, 2001, I was only four, in Fiji, thousands of miles away from the fi­nancial district of Lower Man­hattan, New York.

I vividly remember watching breaking news of the events that shocked the world on this day.

I recall my parents and grand­parents talking about the 9/11 terror attacks daily, the crash into the World Trade Centre that killed close to 3000 innocent peo­ple including first responders on that fateful day.

My late grandmother would well up watching the news daily on stories of victims that lost their lives. She would be so emo­tional just as if she lost her own family members in the 9/11 ter­ror attacks.

The crash of the twin towers made headlines across the world, and the news coverage was a constant presence in our home months and years after the trag­edy.

These early experiences sparked a personal commitment in me to deeply understand the full scope of the events of 9/11 and its profound impact on world history.

9/11  BRIEFLY

On the morning of 11 Septem­ber 2001, 19 terrorists from the Islamist extreme group al Qaeda hijacked four commercial air­craft and crashed two of them into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center com­plex in New York City.

The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed, due to the damage from the impacts and subsequent fires. Nearly 3,000 people were killed from 93 different countries.

The World Trade Centre's twin towers, which stretched above the New York City skyline for 28 years, were levelled by a terrorist attack in 2001. (Reuters: Sean Adair)

Feedback: inoke.rabonu@fijisun.com.fj