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Australia, Netherlands lead MH17 commemorations, 10 years on

July 17, 2024

July 17 is the tenth anniversary of the downing of Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine. Australia's prime minister said the country "remains steadfast" in seeking "truth, justice and accountability from those responsible."

https://p.dw.com/p/4iO9L
A close up photo of the centerpiece of the MH17 memorial in Vijfhuizen in the Netherlands: a silver disc with the names of the 298 on board the plane who died etched on to it. Image from July 10, 2024.
In total, 283 passengers and 15 crew were on the plane; none survivedImage: Sem van der Wal/ANP/picture alliance

Wednesday is the tenth anniversary of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 being shot down over eastern Ukraine by rebel forces with Russian support and equipment. 

Ceremonies in Europe later on Wednesday will center around Vijfhuizen in the Netherlands, near Amsterdam's Schipol Airport, where the plane took off — the site of the monument to the 283 passengers and 15 crew killed.

Of the victims, 193 were from the Netherlands. 

A shot of the MH17 memorial in Vijfhuizen, the Netherlands, focused on a plaque at the base of the sculpture inscribed with the flight number and the date of the tragedy. Image taken on July 10, 2024.
The downing took place fairly early in the war in eastern Ukraine following Russia's annexation of Crimea but predating its full-scale invasion in 2022Image: Sem van der Wal/ANP/picture alliance

Australia mourns in Canberra ceremony

In Canberra, Australia — far ahead of the Netherlands in terms of timezones — a memorial took place at Parliament House's Great Hall on Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in office when the commercial airliner was shot down, were among the attendees.

Twenty-nine of the dead were Australian citizens and another nine were residents.

"Ten years ago, we woke to news as incomprehensible now as it was then: 298 lives taken; 298 voyages ended, yet forever incomplete; 38 who called Australia home, one of the worst Australian peacetime losses of life," Wong said at the ceremony. 

"You have lost so much. But you are not alone in your loss. We are with you," Wong told the friends and relatives of the deceased. "And your grief steels us in the fight for justice, as it has steeled Australia since that terrible day." 

A protest outside the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands on July 9, 2024. 283 empty seats, representing the passengers of the flight, are arranged on the lawn outside the embassy, with a sign calling for "Justice for MH17" at the front.
Protesters also put these 283 chairs, mimicking the plane's passenger layout, outside the Russian Embassy in The Hague last week in a protest in the run-up to the anniversaryImage: SOPA Images/Sipa USA/picture alliance

PM Albanese and opposition leader Dutton call for accountability from Russia

Current Prime Minister Antony Albanese shared an image of himself laying a wreath at a Canberra memorial.

"Australia remains steadfast in our commitment to seeking truth, justice and accountability from those responsible for this horrific act of violence," Albanese said.

Opposition Liberal Party leader Peter Hutton issued a lengthy statement that even more clearly called out Russia and even President Vladimir Putin. 

He repeatedly quoted snippets of an international investigation into the shooting, including one saying that the Russian decision to provide Ukrainian rebels with the type of firepower used to shoot down the plane "was taken at the presidential level." 

The investigators concluded that fighters had intentionally targeted the plane, but that they had not done so in the knowledge that it was a commercial airliner. It nevertheless deemed the attack to be premeditated and in 2022 convicted three of the four main suspects in absentia. 

Presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis, right, points as he and other trial judges and lawyers view the reconstructed wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, at the Gilze-Rijen military airbase, southern Netherlands, Wednesday, May 26, 2021.
Parts of the fusealage were recovered and reconstructed in the years that followed as part of the investigationsImage: Peter Dejong/AP/picture alliance

EU calls on Russia 'to accept its responsibility in this tragedy' 

The European Union, like Wong at the ceremony in Canberra, referred to UN Resolution 2166, saying it reiterated its "full support for all efforts to establish truth, justice and accountability" in the case. 

"The European Union reiterates its call on the Russian Federation to accept its responsibility in this tragedy and to cooperate fully in serving justice," it said in a statement issued ahead of the anniversary. 

Australia has also sent Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to Vijfhuizen near Amsterdam for the European ceremonies. He spoke to ABC News beforehand. 

"One of the main messages in the speech that I'm going to give today is a message of sorrow, but equally a message that Australia is determined, in the memory of those who died, to continue to bring to justice all those responsible," Dreyfus told ABC. "It's a message of sorrow, but also a message of determination — that we're not going to let this go."

When, where and how was MH17 shot down? 

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 took off from Amsterdam's Schipol Airport just after midday local time on July 17, 2014, bound for Kuala Lumpur. 

Just over three hours later, its flight data recorder stopped functioning. It was at a standard cruising altitude and was situated roughly above the Hrabove village in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk oblast at the time. 

A Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile detonated just above and to the left of the pilot's cabin, instantly destroying the cockpit and killing the three people inside it, and leading almost immediately to an explosive decompression in mid-air.

It was one of four commercial aircraft in the area at the time of the crash.

The incident soon led to several airlines changing their standard flight paths to avoid the area.

Piet Ploeg, relative of three MH17 victims, speaks to DW

msh/lo (AFP, AP, dpa)