Relatives of those killed when flight Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine a year ago on Friday joined emotional memorials as calls mounted for a UN-backed tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the tragedy.
All 298 passengers and crew died on July 17 last year when the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was downed over rebel-held east Ukraine during heavy fighting between Kiev’s armed forces and pro-Russian separatists.
Flags flew at half-mast in the Netherlands as about 2,000 relatives and friends gathered at a ceremony in Nieuwegein to mourn the victims of the disaster, many of whom were children on their way to summer vacations.
Photo: Reuters
“There is nothing we can do, we can’t turn back the clock,” said Evert van Zijtvelt, who lost his 18-year-old son, Robert-Jan, and daughter Frederique, 19. “It has been a very heavy year.”
Sobs could be heard as relatives read out the names of those killed and photographs of the dead were shown on a screen accompanied by somber piano music.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte assured the bereaved that justice would be done.
“The investigation into what exactly happened and everything that still needs to be done will be to do right by your loved ones,” Rutte told the gathering.
At the crash site in eastern Ukraine, about 200 villagers gathered to remember the day bodies and airplane parts fell from the sky.
The locals — mostly bussed in by separatists — waved flags of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and carried banners accusing Kiev of killing innocent people in the ongoing battle with rebel forces.
There was no official comment from the Kremlin on the anniversary, but Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov laid a basket of flowers outside the Dutch embassy, Echo of Moscow radio reported.
About 100 Russians also took flowers and paper airplanes to the embassy, after a call by Open Russia, a group created by self-exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
One of the Russians, who gave her name as Tatiana, said she went to the embassy to honor the memory of the victims and “ask for forgiveness.”
“All the information that is available freely inclines me to think that as a national of Russia I, too, am implicated in this. In this tragedy, I, too, am responsible,” she said.
The Netherlands has been tasked with leading the retrieval of victims’ remains and investigating the cause of the crash, as well as finding and punishing possible perpetrators.
The Dutch Safety Board is expected to release a final report into the cause of the crash during the first week of October, but has stressed it will only address the cause, not the perpetrators.
A criminal probe by a joint investigation team consisting of Australian, Belgian, Dutch, Malaysian and Ukrainian detectives is under way.
The UN Security Council has adopted Resolution 2166, which demands those responsible “be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability.”
Britain, France, Malaysia, the Netherlands and others have backed a UN-backed tribunal, but veto-wielding Security Council member Russia is opposed.
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