Lindt Cafe Siege Remembered A Decade On
Image: albomp/Instagram
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have this morning marked a decade since the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney’s Martin Place.
Sunday marked 10 years since the terrorist attack, when self-styled Islamic State supporter Man Haron Monis took 18 people hostage for over 16 hours, culminating in the deaths of cafe manager Tori Johnson, barrister Katrina Dawson, and Monis himself.
Minns and Albanese were joined by Lord Mayor Clover Moore, NSW Governor Margaret Bealey, and the parents of Katrina Dawson. The group laid flowers at the site to commemorate the attack while commuters rushed around them.
“Our hearts are with their family and loved ones, as they mourn their loss, and grieve the lives they would have had,” Chris Minns said to media after the event.
“Our thoughts are also with the surviving hostages and first responders, who still carry the memory and the burden of that terrible day.
“Ten years ago… there was an enormous outpouring of love and solidarity with every innocent person caught up in this evil attack. For 16 hours, our state stood with those brave people, and in the days that followed our community came together.
“Today, as we mark this difficult anniversary, we stand with them once again.”
Tens of thousands of flowers laid in remembrance
Last week the NSW government installed display boards around Martin Place with photographs of the tens of thousands of flowers Sydney-siders created in the days following the siege.
“In response to the tragedy, a single bouquet of snow-white lisianthus was laid at Martin Place,” the board reads. “In the days that followed, the site blossomed into an extraordinary sea of flowers with more than 100,000 floral bouquets laid by a community united in grief.
“Ten years on, we pause and reflect on the tragic events and remember the community’s outpouring of love that followed.”
The memorial is only temporary, and will be deconstructed later this week.
A permanent memorial was unveiled in 2017, with more than 200 artificial flowers embedded in the pavement behind glass frames.
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