MH17: ONE YEAR ON
A heinous act of war
A YEAR on from the shocking atrocity that claimed 298 lives on flight MH17, the pain is still raw for dozens of Australian families.
In just a few moments, a heinous act of war ended the lives of children, mothers and fathers, grandparents, wives and husbands, sisters, brothers and friends.
They had boarded the Malaysia Airlines flight in Amsterdam on July 17, in the expectation of arriving in Kuala Lumpur 12 hours later.
Instead, less than three hours into the flight, the Boeing 777 was shot down as it flew over the warzone in eastern Ukraine, in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
The impact of the crash resulted in debris being spread over several kilometres. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed.
Next Friday and in the days that follow, families, friends and communities will come together to remember the victims, 39 of whom called Australia home.
There will be a public memorial service in Canberra where a national monument will be unveiled.
As appreciative of the gesture as the families are, many have found their own ways to honour their loved ones and manage their grief.
A Perth couple who moved Australia with a heartfelt tribute to their three young children in the weeks after the tragedy have made a new art collective their focus.
Marite Norris and husband Anthony Maslin set out to create an energy in the space, to honour their “beautiful and ar- tistic children Mo, Evie and Otis”.
“I am pretty sure they will be stoked,” says Ms Norris, who also lost her father Nic in the tragedy.
The sons of Brisbane’s Howard and Susan Horder will attend an Andre Rieu concert in Maastricht this weekend, as special guests of the maestro.
The Horders realised their dream of attending a Rieu concert hours before boarding the ill-fated flight home.
Sunbury Football Club in Victoria will stage a memorial match next Saturday in honour of long-time members Albert and Marie Rizk.
They were not scheduled to be on MH17 but boarded after missing an earlier flight.
In Sydney, Kincoppal-Rose Bay School is preparing to dedicate a learning centre to Sister Philomene Tiernan, a much-loved teacher at the Catholic girls school.
Toowoomba Hospital in Queensland’s southwest has commissioned a granite bench
in the memory of chief pathologist Dr Roger Guard, who was travelling with wife Jill.
A Toowoomba street has been named after Dr Guard at the request of his running group.
For Brisbane businessman Peter Bell, each day without daughter Emma is a struggle.
“Every day you have a little think about Emma being lost at such a young age and the things she could’ve been doing,” says Mr Bell of his 30year-old daughter who taught at indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.
In the case of Perth’s Dr Jerzy Dyczynski and Angela Rudhart Dyczynski, the loss of brilliant daughter Fatima was unfathomable.
Against official advice, the couple travelled to the crash site in the days after the disaster to search for their only child.
Almost a year later, they accept she is gone.
“We miss her with every atom of our being and existence,” Dr Dyczynski says.
Adelaide’s Hans Sidelik, whose Gold Coast-based sister Helena was the last Australian to be identified from the crash site, tells how he has to remind himself not to call her.
“At the end of every day, I go to ring her mobile and then I remember – she’s no longer with us,” Mr Sidelik says.
For Paul Guard, the eldest son of Jill and Roger Guard, actively campaigning for a resolution to the conflict is a coping mechanism.
“It’s still a difficult thing to deal with obviously. You never stop missing them any less,” Mr Guard says.
“Part of the difficulty is it is a senseless tragedy.”
It is a widely held belief that the Boeing 777 was shot down by a BUK missile launched by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine.
The plan was thought to have been to bring down a Ukrainian warplane, but something went disastrously wrong.
The focus of the international team investigating the atrocity has been a Volvo truck transporting a BUK missile system on the night of July 17 through Ukraine.
An appeal for witnesses or people with information about the truck and its crew was made in late March, after months of painstaking investigation.
It is not clear when the joint investigation team might complete its work.
A separate investigation by the Dutch Safety Board will be finalised in October.
That report is unlikely to apportion blame for the atrocity but simply provide a complete record of events.
The board is also examining whether the victims would have been conscious as the aircraft broke up and plunged to the ground.
Australian families have indicated they are satisfied with the way both investigations are progressing, despite the length of time being taken.
Mr Sidelik says he is confident prosecutions will eventuate.
However, Mr Guard questions how the investigation can remain objective with Ukraine as part of the team.
“It’s too simplistic to just blame this whole thing on (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, which a lot of people want to do,” he says.
“I think there’s obviously a long history and a very complex conflict there.
“A lot of bad things have been done by both sides; there’s some pretty nasty people in that conflict on both sides.”
Mr Bell is similarly cynical about the likelihood of any prosecutions being made in regards to MH17.
“It’s hard to see how a proper investigation could take place in a war zone,” Mr Bell says.
“It would be really beneficial for the families of the victims and the nations as a whole to find out or have conclusive evidence as to what really happened.”
It’s still a difficult thing to deal with … You never stop missing them any less PAUL GUARD