The world mourns over the loss of 298 lives aboard the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, but one story in particular has broken the heart of people all over the globe. Three young Maslin siblings, Otis aged 8, Evie aged 10, and Mo, aged 12, died in the incident along with their grandfather, Nick Norris.
The Australian Maslin family had lived in Hong Kong for several years, with the children attending Australian International School, reports SCMP.
Mo and Otis had played for a junior Australian football team, the Cobras. Their head coach wrote on the Australian Rules Junior Football Club Hong Kong website that the Maslin family had been “very popular and active” members of the community.
The children’s parents, Marite Norris and Anthony Maslin, released an open letter:
A message to the soldiers in the Ukraine, the politicians, the media, our friends and family.
Our pain is intense and relentless. We live in a hell beyond hell.
Our babies are not here with us — we need to live with this act of horror, every day and every moment for the rest of our lives.
No one deserves what we are going through.
Not even the people who shot our whole family out of the sky.
No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for our children, for Mo, for Evie, for Otis.
No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for Grandad Nick.
No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for each other.
This is a revelation that gives us some comfort.
We would ask everyone to remember this when you are making any decisions that affect us and the other victims of this horror.
So far, every moment since we arrived home, we’ve been surrounded by family and friends. We desperately pray that this continues, because this expression of love is what is keeping us alive. We want to continue to know about your lives, all the good and all the bad. We no longer have lives that we want to live by ourselves. So we’d like to take the chance to thank everyone, all our incredible friends, family and communities, and to tell you all that we love you very much.
We would also like to thank the people at DFAT; the local co-ordinator Claire and most sincerely, Diana and Adrian from The Hague, without whom we would not be here. We ask the media to respect the privacy of our family and friends — pain is not a story.
Yours truly
Anthony Maslin & Marite Norris
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Photo: Alan Wilson via Wikimedia
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