Americans are commemorating the 9/11 attacks with ceremonies,
Many relatives of the victims are expected to arrive in “Ground Zero” on Wednesday, and President Donald Trump is scheduled to participate in a commemoration at the Pentagon. Vice President Mike Pence is going to give a speech at the site of the third attack, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Eighteen years after the deadliest terrorist attacks on US territory, the nation continues to try to recover. The aftermath of the attacks can be seen from airport security inspections to Afghanistan, where the invasion after 9/11 has become the longest war in the United States. The peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban collapsed in recent days.
“People say,” Why do you come here, year after year? “, Said Chundera Epps, sister of Christopher Epps, a victim of September 11, last year at a ceremony at the World Trade Center. “Because soldiers are still dying for our freedom. There are first responders who continue to die and get sick. ”
“We can not forget. Life will not allow us to forget, ”he said.
The ceremonies focus on the commemoration of the nearly 3,000 people who died when hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a camp near Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. All the names of those victims are read aloud at a ceremony at Ground Zero, where the exact time the planes collided and the towers collapsed are remembered with moments of silence and ringing bells.
But in recent years there has been a growing awareness of the suffering of another group of people related to the tragedy: firefighters, police and other first responders who died or became ill after being exposed to debris and toxins in the air in the area.
Although research continues to be conducted on whether these diseases are linked to 9/11 toxins, a compensation fund for people with health problems potentially related to the attacks has delivered more than $ 5.5 billion so far. More than 51,000 people have requested compensation.
