(17 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Amsterdam, Netherlands – 17 July 2024
1. Various of attendees arriving at the 10th anniversary of MH17 commemoration
2. Flags flying at half mast
3. Various of Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof arriving
4. Various of Dutch King Willem-Alexander arriving
5. Various of attendees arriving
6. Pan of MH17 victims’ country flags at half mass
STORYLINE:
Relatives of passengers and crew killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine gathered in Amsterdam on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the tragedy that claimed 298 lives, over half of whom were Dutch.
Commemoration services took place in the Netherlands, Australia and the site of the crash in the Russia-controlled part of the Donetsk region, as the war in Ukraine raged on.
Hundreds of family members joined the Dutch king, politicians and diplomats at an event at a memorial in the Netherlands close to Schiphol, the airport the Kuala Lumpur-bound Boeing 777 departed from on July 17, 2014.
Many of the families arriving for the service also carried sunflowers, laying them next to trees.
Flags of the countries that lost citizens hung at half-staff next to a field of blooming sunflowers.
Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof quoted a poem on loss called “Come Back” by Toon Tellegen and pledged to keep on the fight to hold accountable those responsible.
The Netherlands was home to 196 of the victims while 38 hailed from Australia.
Victims also came from Malaysia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, the Philippines, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam, Israel, Italy, Romania, the United States and South Africa.
A similar ceremony was held at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra and at the crash site in the village of Hrabov, several dozen local residents brought flowers, stuffed animals and even a model airplane to a small memorial stone installed in a field near where some of the wreckage was found.
In 2022, a Dutch court convicted in absentia two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist for their role in the jet’s downing, but Moscow has repeatedly denied responsibility.
An international investigation initiated in the U.N. Security Council by the Netherlands, Malaysia and Australia concluded that the Buk missile system that destroyed MH17 belonged to the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.
The investigation concluded the missile was driven into Ukraine from a Russian military base near the city of Kursk and returned there after the plane was shot down.
Russia continues to be pursued under international law by the Netherlands in the European Court of Human Rights and by Australia and the Netherlands jointly through the International Civil Aviation Organization Council, or ICAO, over its alleged role in bringing down MH17.
AP shot by Ahmad Seir Nassiri
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