NATION GRIEVES: The national flag flies at half-mast for the victims of flight MH17. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that the national flag be flown at half-mast from Friday night until tomorrow. MAS flight MH17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 283 passengers and 15 crew members crashed in the east of Ukraine on Friday. Forty-four of the victims are Malaysians. — Bernama photo
SEPANG: “We hope the remains of Ariza Ghazalee, 46, her husband Tambi Jiee, 49, and their four children who were on board the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH17, which went down in Ukraine on Thursday, will be found,” said Ariza’s cousin, Noraini Mohd Hol.
Noraini, 52, said she needed to see the remains of Ariza and her family before informing the family of the victim who are still in Bintulu, Sarawak.
“I love her and her family very much and she was the closest to me although she was staying far away in Kazakstan with her husband and children,” she told reporters when met at the Observation Tower, KL International Airport (KLIA) yesterday.
Noraini said she was not blaming MAS for the crash and considered it a tragedy that was fated.
She also said that Ariza had followed Tambi, who was working for a company owned by Shell in Kazakhstan and that Ariza’s husband had just received approval for a transfer to Kuala Lumpur.
She said Ariza had uploaded her status in the social website, Facebook, ‘17 July 2014, starting our new hijrah, Alhamdulillah’, at 5.29pm (Malaysian time) Friday while at the Amsterdam Airport.
Meanwhile, another cousin Zulrusdi Mohammad Hol, 46, expressed sadness at the tragedy, especially as it happened when Aidilfitri was just approaching.
“The last time we met was in March because she came to visit my late mother in hospital, and each year, Ariza and family would drop by our house for Hari Raya,” he said.
Ariza and her husband and children, Muhammad Afif, 19, Muhammad Afzal, 19, Marsha Azmeena, 15, and Muhammad Afruz, 13, were scheduled to arrive in Kuala Lumpur early Friday morning before proceeding to Kuching in the afternoon.
The Boeing 777 aircraft carrying 298 passengers and crew members went down in Ukraine on Thursday. — Bernama