Park honouring MH17 victims opened
FAMILIES who lost loved ones in the MH17 aircraft disaster have come together to mourn, sharing tears of grief at the opening of a new memorial in the Netherlands.
On the third anniversary of the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines flight over the Ukraine, a stunning new memorial park was opened, with 298 trees planted to remember each victim, including 38 Australians.
More than 2000 people, many bearing bunches of sunflowers, came from across the world to see the park formally opened, bringing photographs, flowers and mementos to personalise their loved ones’ trees.
On July 17, 2014, flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a missile, landing in a field of sunflowers in eastern Ukraine, killing everyone on board.
But the grief and heartbreak was still raw, with heartbreaking scenes across the park as people wept remembering their parents, siblings and children.
About a dozen Australian families attended, and later met up at the Drover’s Dog cafe in Amsterdam at a func- tion hosted by the Australian Embassy.
Australian Federal Police officers still in Europe investigating the missile strike, which is thought to have been carried out by Russian-backed rebels fighting the Ukrainians, also attended.
The embassy helped Australians bring native Australian flowers and plants to the site to honour their loved ones’ heritage.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima led 17 schoolchildren into the amphitheatre at the centre of the memorial forest, placing sunflowers in vases and inspecting the 298 names inscribed on a central dome designed to resemble an eye.
All the names were read aloud.
It took 27 minutes, as 54 family members spoke the names of their loved ones, and stood in for others.
Some spoke in English, some in Malay, many more in Dutch. Many wept as they ran through the tragic roll call of lives cut short.
Anthony Maslin and Marite Norris, of Western Australia, lost their children Mo, 12, Evie, 10, and Otis, 8, along with Marite’s father, Nick Norris.
The pair stood side by side as they acknowledged their family — three children travelling home with their grandfather from a European holiday when they were killed.
Evert van Zitjveld, who lost his two teenage children and his parents-in-law in the crash, performed the official welcome and thanked the families for coming together.
“Our loved ones together went on a journey 27 July, 2014, and this memorial forest symbolically unites them again,” he said.
“With the sun, rain and fertile earth, the trees will flourish and allow our loved ones to live on in our hearts.”
The fields of sunflowers planted surrounding the memorial will bloom every July, as they were in Ukraine when the plane fell from the sky.