MH17 memorial unveiled
298 trees planted for each victim who died on board the ill-fated flight
298 trees planted for each victim who died on board ill-fated flight.
VI JFHUIZEN ( Netherlands): Three years after Flight MH17 was shot down by a missile over wartorn Ukraine, more than 2,000 relatives gathered to unveil a “living memorial” to their loved ones.
A total of 298 trees have been planted in the shape of a green ribbon, one for each of the victims who died on board the Malaysia Airlines flight en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima joined government and international officials at a solemn ceremony to dedicate the memorial in the park of Vijfhuizen, close to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport where the flight took off from on July 17, 2014.
The names of all the 298 passengers and crew killed in the disaster were read out by their families, and 17 local children laid flowers.
While most of the victims were Dutch, there were 17 nationalities on board including Australians, Britons, Malaysians and Indonesians.
“A tree symbolises ‘hope’ and ‘future’ in many cultures,” the victims’ families association said in a statement.
“We not only want to honour the MH17 victims, but also want to create a place where everyone can keep their memories of the 298 passengers alive.”
Funded by donations, the project was designed by artist Ronald A. Westerhuis and landscape architect Robbert de Koning after it was cho- sen out of three proposals by relatives in late 2015.
The trees in the memorial will be surrounded by sunflowers, which bloom in July, and will “radiate a golden glow” over the trees, the foundation said.
The flowers also represent “the sunflower fields in eastern Ukraine where some parts of the plane wreckage were found”.
Each of the trees bears the name of one of the victims. And at the heart of the forest of 11 different tree varieties is a steel memorial shaped like an eye, turned upwards looking at the skies.
One apple tree has been dedicated to 16-year-old Gary, from Rotterdam, whose body has still not yet been identified.
“It’s nice to think that he has a tree, since we have not received his body.
“We don’t want Gary to be forgotten.
“We don’t want any of the 298 victims to be forgotten,” his father Jan Slok, told the daily AD newspaper.