[icopyright one button toolbar]
Scroll down for updates
In her “Maybe this is the real story behind the downed Malaysia airliner,” fellow contributor Prairie Weather posted an image of the numbers and nationalities of the men, women, children and babies aboard the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
While the numbers have slightly changed — the Wall Street Journal this morning, for example, raised the number of Dutch victims to 192 — the enormity of the tragedy remains unchanged.
This author and many others have focused on the technical, military and political aspects of the tragedy.
While I have considered the Wall Street Journal a somewhat formal, aloof, business-like newspaper, in the same article that updates the numbers, I found some of the most touching words, stories and images on the human dimension of the disaster.
“The Innocent Lives of Flight 17: Parents, Children, Lovers, Friends” focuses mostly on the Dutch victims and survivors, since the Dutch have suffered the greatest loss of human life, but every one of the other 106victims is a tragedy.
With my thanks to the Journal, here are some of the stories.
To read the entire article, please go here.
It is the story of Cor Schilder and his girlfriend, Neeltje Tol, who were headed to Bali. Neeltje owned a flower shop in the small town of Volendam.
Cor worked at a landfill and played drums. He is the person who “posted on Facebook a photograph he took Thursday of the Boeing 777 that was Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. ‘Should it disappear,’ he wrote, tongue-in-cheek, ‘this is what it looked like.’ Then he and Ms. Tol boarded.”
The WSJ:
On Friday, parents and children stopped by Ms. Tol’s flower shop in Volendam, a small town north of here, laying down dozens of bouquets in memory of the couple, who had been together 12 years.
.It was a scene of grief repeated across the Netherlands on the day after the crash of Flight 17 that killed all 298 people aboard. “The terrible reality of this disaster is slowly sinking in,” said Ivo Opstelten, the Dutch minister of security and justice, as his nation mourned the 192 citizens, including many children, who perished.
[…]
Flags flew at half-staff across the country. In Woerden, a town south of Amsterdam, a high school organized a memorial service for three students who died. In Rotterdam, residents left flowers at the door of an Asian restaurant whose owners were on the plane.
.
The flight carried several Dutch citizens heading to an AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia, including Joep Lange, a globally recognized AIDS researcher who had served as president of the International AIDS Society.[…]
Mr. Goudsmit, a virologist at the University of Amsterdam, where Mr. Lange also worked, said he went to his colleague’s house Friday to comfort Mr. Lange’s five children, ages 17 to 29. “They were in a state of shock,” Mr. Goudsmit said in a call from the house.
The Journal adds that most of the passengers on Flight 17 weren’t well-known. “The dead included many families from small towns and villages in the Netherlands, who were setting out to enjoy Europe’s vacation season.”
Families such as Jeroen Wals’ family. Wals, “a father of four, spent Tuesday afternoon biking with his cycling club through the flat barley fields near his home in the southern Netherlands before taking his family on a trip to Southeast Asia.”
“Thursday, finally to Malaysia,” Jinte, one of his school-age daughters, wrote on Twitter.
.
Dozens of mourners, many in tears and mouthing silent prayers, congregated Friday at the family’s home in Neerkant, a small hamlet. Hand-drawn cards sat alongside candles, roses and teddy bears brought to the house. Nearby was the primary school, where Mr. Wals helped coach sports and where his youngest daughter, Solenn, was a student.
Also the story of Karlijn Keijzer, “a 25-year-old Amsterdam native…a graduate student at Indiana University who was flying with her boyfriend to Indonesia for a vacation.”
And of Ariza Ghazalee whose “final post on Facebook was a photograph showing 15 pieces of luggage about to be loaded into a car that would take her family to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport for the flight to Malaysia and a new life.”
Ghazalee’s youngest son, 13-year-old Afruz, — he “loved his cats and soccer“– “had been disturbed by the disappearance in March of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. He made a cartoon of the aircraft, which still hasn’t been found, as his Facebook cover picture. He had posted a drawing of hands reaching to the missing plane with the words, ‘Please come back.’”
Other nationalities, such as yachting enthusiast Nick Norris who “was wrapping up a European vacation when he boarded Flight 17 with his three grandchildren. He was returning them to Western Australia so they could begin their new school semester on time.”
His daughter, Rin Norris, and her partner, Anthony Maslin, planned to stay behind in the Netherlands a while longer before returning home to join 8-year-old Otis, 10-year-old Evie and 12-year-old Mo in the southern suburbs of Perth.
.News of their deaths reached Ms. Norris and Mr. Maslin in Amsterdam, according to the staff at the South of Perth Yacht Club where Mr. Norris sailed with his wife, Lindy.
The small nation of the Netherlands has, once again, suffered a disproportionate loss.
Wij betuigen ons diepe medeleven met de mensen van Nederland.
Lead image: www.shutterstcok.com
Update:
Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby provided the following readout of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s phone call with the Netherlands’ Minister of Defense Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaer:
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke today via telephone with the Netherlands’ Minister of Defense Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert to offer his personal condolences for the 192 Dutch citizens who lost their lives on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
.
The secretary reiterated President Obama’s pledge to support an international investigation into the incident. The two leaders also discussed the security situation in Ukraine and the difficulty investigators are experiencing in gaining unimpeded and secure access to the crash site.
.
Minister Hennis-Plasschaert highlighted the Netherlands’ desire to have the victims returned to their families as soon as possible, balanced with the need to support and complete a credible investigation.
.
The secretary and the minister discussed the importance of a strong and united response to the tragedy and promised to stay in touch regarding the situation in Ukraine.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.