Queen Elizabeth says prayers for victims and survivors of 9/11

(File photo) Britain’s Queen Elizabeth

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth said yesterday that her prayers remained with victims and survivors of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and paid tribute to the communities that joined together to rebuild after the devastation. “My thoughts and prayers – and those of my family and the entire nation – remain with the victims, survivors and families affected, as well as the first responders and rescue workers called to duty,” she said in a message to US President Joe Biden. “My visit to the site of the World Trade Centre in 2010 is held fast in my memory,” the Queen said. “It reminds me that as we honour those from many nations, faiths and backgrounds who lost their lives, we also pay tribute to the resilience and determination of the communities who joined together to rebuild.” The Queen and her late husband Prince Philip made a rare trip to the US in 2010, laying a wreath at Ground Zero and meeting relatives of victims. The 9/11 attacks killed 2,977 people, the single largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil, according to the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Sixty-seven British nationals were among the dead. In a further royal tribute to the dead, the US anthem was played yesterday by fur-hatted Welsh Guards at the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Windsor Castle. Previously, a day after the attacks the Queen ordered the US anthem to be played during the Changing of the Guard ceremony outside Buckingham Palace. The Queen also reportedly sang along to The Star-Spangled Banner at a memorial service in London’s St Paul’s Cathedral three days after the attacks, breaking royal protocol. In September 2001, the Queen wrote a message that was read out at a service of remembrance in New York for the British dead, saying “nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love”. While in the US in 2010, she opened Manhattan’s British Memorial Garden dedicated to the British victims.