AIDS RESEARCH TEAM WAS ON BOARD
Among the dead were 100 renowned researchers and activists heading to an AIDS conference in Australia, including former president of the International AIDS Society Joep Lange. News of their death sparked an outpouring of grief across the scientific community.
THE HAGUE: International passengers from all walks of life, from a prominent AIDS researcher and soccer fans to a nun and a florist, were aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
Relatives, friends and colleagues paid tribute Friday to victims even before the airline released their names as it scrambled to contact the next of kin of the victims.
A Malaysia Airlines vice president, Huib Gorter, said 189 of the 298 passengers who perished were Dutch. Several were traveling to Melbourne, Australia, for the 20th International AIDS conference, which starts Sunday.
The Academic Medical Center hospital in Amsterdam said in a statement that two of its staff, including renowned AIDS researcher Joep Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society, and his colleague Jacqueline van Tongeren were believed to have perished.
“Joep was a man who knew no barriers,” the hospital said. “He was a great inspiration for everybody who wanted to do something about the AIDS tragedy in Africa and Asia.”
Lange had been working on HIV since the earliest years of the epidemic, participating in clinical trials and research across the world.
Nobel laureate Dr Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of the AIDS virus and president of the International AIDS Society, paid tribute to Lange in a speech in the Australian capital, Canberra. “Joep was a wonderful person — a great professional ... but more than that, a wonderful human being,” she said. “If it is confirmed, it will be a terrible loss for all of us. I have no words, really, to try to express my sadness. I feel totally devastated.”
Chris Beyrer, president-elect of the International AIDS Society, said if reports of Lange’s death were true, “then the HIV/AIDS movement has truly lost a giant.”
World Health Organization spokesman Glenn Thomas, a 49-year-old Briton, was also killed.
The fli ght set off from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and was heading for the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
In the close-knit fishing town of Volendam, near the Dutch capital, flowers were laid outside a florist’s shop whose owner and her boyfriend also were believed to be among the victims.
A handwritten note taped to the storefront above a bunch of orange roses, read: “Dear Cor and Neeltje. This is unwanted, unbelievable and unfair. Rest in peace. We will never forget you.”
In Kuala Lumpur, a distraught Akmar Mohamad Noor, 67, said her older sister was coming to visit the family for the first time in five years.
“She called me just before she boarded the plane and said, ‘See you soon,’” Akmar said.
Students at Sydney Catholic school Kincoppal-Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart gathered Friday for a special prayer meeting after it was confirmed that Sister Philomene Tiernan, a 77-year-old teacher, was killed.
“We’re absolutely devastated. For me, she’s been a great mentor and she’s also a personal friend,” school principal Hilary Johnston-Croke said, her voice breaking with emotion.