Ten years after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was blasted from the sky over war-torn Ukraine, families of the victims will gather Wednesday to remember the tragedy as hopes fade that those responsible will soon be behind bars.
Hundreds of relatives as well as government representatives and dignitaries are expected to attend the event at a memorial park near Schiphol airport where the doomed flight took off on a bright summer’s day on July 17, 2014.
Hours later the Boeing 777 jet was shot down by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, as it passed on a flight line toward Kuala Lumpur. All 298 people on board died.
A Dutch court has sentenced in absentia three men to life imprisonment for their roles in bringing down the plane over separatist-held pro-Russian territory, during the early stages of a war that saw Moscow seize the Crimean peninsula.
On Wednesday the names of all the victims — 196 of them Dutch — will be read during the commemoration, its organisers said.
Forty-three Malaysians and 38 Australians were also among the victims from 10 countries.
Memorial ceremonies are also planned elsewhere, including a service in the Australian parliament.
“This remains a dark day. For all of us,” said Evert van Zijtveld, who lost his daughter Frederique, 19, his son Robert-Jan, 18, as well as his parents-in-law.
“Once again we gather to commemorate our loved ones. It’s incredibly sad,” van Zijtveld told AFP ahead of the gathering.
Dutch judges in November 2022 found Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko guilty for their roles in bringing down the jet.
The three suspects refused to take part in the legal proceedings or acknowledge their roles in the incident.
A fourth man, Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted.
Judges ruled that Girkin, Dubinsky and Kharchenko could all be held responsible for the transport of the BUK missile from a military base in Russia and deploying it to the launch site — even if they did not launch the missile themselves.
Last year international investigators suspended their work, saying there was not enough evidence to prosecute more suspects.
But the investigators concluded there were “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the supply of the missile that downed the plane.
Australia and the Netherlands have an ongoing case against Russia with the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency with limited enforcement powers.
Russia has denied any involvement and dismissed the 2022 court verdict as “scandalous” and politically motivated.
“I don’t think those responsible will serve their sentences,” Van Zijtveld said.
“The invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of the war has made that really difficult to believe that any of them will be arrested soon,” he said, referring to the war against Ukraine launched by Russia in February 2022.
“In the end, we were unable to put anyone behind bars,” Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof acknowledged.
“That sense of justice is there, but ultimately not as it should have been,” he told public broadcaster NOS.
Van Zijtveld — who now runs a foundation in the name of his two children to help other children including refugees from Ukraine — said “in many ways those on the plane were some of the first victims of this ongoing war”.
When the verdict was handed down, a spokesman for the victims’ families told AFP he hoped it would help families move on.
“I don’t believe in terms of closure — ask relatives who lost their children, you will never find closure for that,” said Piet Ploeg, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nephew.
“But I really hope that this day will give families some space to try to get on with their lives,” he said at the time.
Van Zijtveld said that for relatives, including several of his own who will be attending on Wednesday, July 17 remains a hard day.
“On that day my children were murdered,” he said. “You will see, we will all be attending wearing black clothing,” he added.