Published on: 2026-09-11
Source: United Nations – Объединенные Нации –
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On the eve of the 25th anniversary of September 11, United Nations Secretary-General’s spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, Director for Electoral Assistance at the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Michelle Griffin, and Chief Editor of the UN News Service Victor Evans-Harvey reflect on the day that changed their lives and the work of the United Nations.
UN News Service/J. Van From left to right: Victor Evans-Harvey, Michelle Griffin, and Stephane Dujarric.
“You won’t get in there today”
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Victor Evans-Harvey was going to work at the UN. He saw smoke over Manhattan but was confident that whatever was happening at the Twin Towers, the UN would continue to operate.
“I saw the smoke, but I still went to the subway station – I needed to get to work,” he says. “I thought that nothing would change in New York, and we would work as usual.”
Evans-Harvey lived in downtown Jersey City, which is located on the opposite side of the Hudson River from Manhattan. He saw the Twin Towers from his window every day – they were a part of the usual cityscape.
When he reached the UN headquarters, it became clear to him that this day would not be ordinary: “A security officer stopped me. He asked, ‘Where are you heading?’ I replied, ‘To work.’ He said, ‘Unfortunately, today you won’t be able to get in.'”
UN Photo/T. Engberg As part of new security measures, evacuation drills were conducted at the UN headquarters on September 28, 2001.
News was passed from floor to floor
On the 37th floor of the UN Secretariat building, towering above the waters of the East River, Michelle Griffin saw the same scene as Evans-Harvey, but from a different angle. Even on her way to work, she had seen the first of the World Trade Center towers on fire.
“When I was leaving the house, I heard the neighbor shout, ‘That’s my office!’ I went outside and saw a huge hole in the facade of the first tower,” recalls Griffin.
According to her, at that moment many still thought that a small plane had accidentally collided with the building. When she reached the 37th floor, the second tower had already been struck, and it became clear that this could be a deliberate attack.
Despite the current situation, Griffin and her colleagues held a morning meeting. They discussed the situation in Afghanistan: two days earlier, the leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud, had been killed. The attack on him was organized by Al-Qaeda.
Soon the scale of what was happening became apparent. Evacuation began down the building’s staircases. Cellular networks were overloaded, and people had difficulty reaching their homes. Griffin’s husband miraculously managed to get in touch with her and informed her that one of the Twin Towers had collapsed.
“When we were going down, news was passed down the stairs from floor to floor,” Griffin recalls. “I remember the Chief of Staff to the Secretary General and his protocol staff discussing whether to continue with the scheduled events, including the ceremony of striking the Peace Bell. In the end, we were evacuated. I walked home on foot. At that time, crowds of people were moving away from the destroyed towers.”
“You’d better go home”
At that time, at the UN headquarters building, Stéphane Dujarric was preparing a news summary for the Secretary-General.
“There was a sense of panic inside the building – reports were coming in that another plane might be headed for the UN headquarters,” recalls the press secretary. “So it was decided that Kofi Annan would stay at his residence. My then supervisor took me with him to a senior staff meeting: they were discussing what statement to make and what to do next. Then he turned to the younger staff and said, ‘You’d better go home.'”
Dujaric’s wife had already called several times, begging him to leave the headquarters. Their first child was less than a year old at the time. Public transportation had stopped, and Dujaric, along with a colleague, walked on foot to the northern part of Manhattan.
“On the way, we started meeting people coming from the center,” Dujaric says. “They were covered in ash from head to toe and looked almost like ghosts.”
Eventually, they saw the bus approaching the stop. No one had any change for the fare, but the driver invited everyone to get on board for free.
Photo UN/E. Debebe George W. Bush (left) and Secretary-General Kofi Annan (center) stand at the World Trade Center site after the September 11 attacks.
“Snowflakes” on a blue sky
Returning home, people still did not understand what had happened and what would happen next. Griffin and her husband took in a colleague who lived alone: “No one wanted to be alone at that moment.”
The supermarket on the first floor of her building was packed: residents were stocking up on groceries en masse because no one knew when city life would return to normal.
In 2001, there were no smartphones or social networks in the modern sense in New York. Posters asking “Have you seen this person?” were hanging everywhere on the streets.
Evans-Harvey recalls one strange episode that stayed with him for a lifetime: “The explosions sent a huge amount of paper into the air. Small scraps swirled like snowflakes inside a souvenir glass globe. Against the backdrop of the bright blue sky, it looked almost unreal — especially since the day was unusually clear.”
UN Photo/E. Debebe Ruins of the World Trade Center.
A routine that suddenly became a memory
Griffin had been starting her mornings for many years with a run around the Twin Towers. Usually, she would run around the skyscrapers and then continue along the river, but that morning the run didn’t happen: “I decided to stay home, I don’t know why. I blamed myself for a long time afterward. It could have been my last goodbye. I really loved that route, loved running. And then everything disappeared, everything was covered in ashes…”
Work at the UN continued
As already mentioned, the attack completely disrupted the UN’s work schedule. The ceremony of the strike on the Peace Bell, scheduled for September 11, was postponed to the 14th. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and heads of UN agencies began issuing statements in memory of the victims. The terrorist attacks instantly changed the Organization’s political agenda.
Griffin, who was involved in political affairs, almost immediately focused her efforts on Afghanistan. The leadership of Al-Qaeda was hiding in this country, and power was in the hands of the Taliban.
“The Secretary-General has appointed one of our best coordinators – Lakhdar Brahimi – as head of the UN mission in Afghanistan to help determine the political path for this country after international intervention,” she says.
This turned out to be a task of enormous complexity.
“Over time, it became clear that the journey would be long and ultimately unsuccessful,” Griffin admits, “but at the very beginning, it all seemed like an incredibly important mission.”
She was able to return to work in the UN building because she lived in Manhattan – and she had roller skates: “I felt that I had to continue working no matter what.”
Dujarric recalls another almost surreal moment that reminded him: the work of the UN must go on. In the days when New York was still trying to grasp the scale of the destruction, he received a call from a journalist from Cyprus who asked how the attack on New York might affect the upcoming negotiations on the Cyprus settlement.
Dujarrit recalls wanting to respond rudely: “Thousands of people have just died in New York. Maybe we could think about something else for a minute?”
But this seemingly inappropriate question from the journalist accurately reflected reality: even when the whole of New York is in mourning, conflicts and crises in other parts of the world do not stop.
© Eric Gantz Light installation in New York dedicated to the memory of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Solidarity and support
In the first days after the attack, an extraordinary sense of unity arose at the UN. Griffin recalls: “New Yorkers showed incredible solidarity, and the same was true among diplomats and UN staff – mutual support, involvement, care.”
On September 11, diplomats from different countries, who usually disagree on many issues, witnessed the same tragedy. They saw the same distorted cityscape and shared a common shock. The Security Council spoke with one voice in the first hours after the attack.
The tragedy and its consequences
The consequences of the September 11 terrorist attacks went beyond the shock of the first day. The attack changed the work of the UN in the field of counterterrorism and initiated a chain of political and military events that reshaped international relations for decades.
For Griffin, these changes are especially noticeable in the example of Afghanistan and in how international cooperation mechanisms have evolved.
For Evans-Harvey, September 11 was a moment when UN staff became much closer to each other: “It was a special time. Those of us working at headquarters really felt like one big family. And yet it was an extremely difficult period.”
For Dujarric, the unity that the Security Council showed after the attack sharply contrasts with what is happening now: “None of that cohesion of the Security Council in the first days after September 11 remains… In my opinion, it is now in the most divided state I have seen in my 26 years at the UN.”
The UN spokesperson believes that the echo of the events of September 11 continues to resonate, and we are witnessing a long chain reaction triggered by that tragedy: “It was like an explosion. Its shockwave is still felt today.”
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