Three years after Flight MH17 was shot down by a missile over war-torn Ukraine, nearly 2,000 relatives gathered Monday to unveil a “living memorial” to their loved ones.
A total of 298 trees have been planted in the shape of a green ribbon, one for each of the victims who died on board the Malaysia Airlines flight en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima joined government and international officials at a solemn ceremony to dedicate the memorial in the park of Vijfhuizen, close to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, where the flight took off from on July 17, 2014.
The names of all the 298 passengers and crew killed in the disaster were read out by their emotional families, and the Dutch royals and others laid flowers.
While most of the victims were Dutch, there were 10 nationalities on board including Australians, Britons, Malaysians and Indonesians.
“It’s three years to the day that MH17 was shot down in mid-air,” said Evert van Zijtveld, the head of association of the victims’ families.
“But for us it was yesterday. That day… left a void in our lives. There is a life before and after July 17, 2014.”
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