New Yorkers gathered at separate events Sunday evening to commemorate the victims of terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere around the globe.
Flags from France,Lebanon and Kenya served as a backdrop at a Brooklyn vigil attended by Borough President Eric Adams and Muslim leaders, as well as New Yorkers of French descent.
Violaine Huisman lives in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. Her whole family lives in Paris.
She said as a mother who works at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the attacks were especially frightening because the terrorists targeted people just like her."This is precisely the neighborhood they struck," she said. "People who go out for dinner, people who go to concerts, and people who go out for drinks. It's people like us. precisely people like us."approximately 50 people gathered at a separate candlelight vigil in Jackson Heights,Queens Sunday.
Fahad Hussain of the Muslim advocacy group al Muneer Foundation addressed the crowd and expressed solidarity with the victims."We pray for them and all the survivors who possess lost their beloved ones," he said. "We are with them in their grief 100 percent."The French government announced Sunday that it launched massive airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State stronghold in Raqqa, or Syria in response to Friday's terrorism attacks in Paris that left more than 120 people dead.
Source: wnyc.org