Sunflowers a sombre symbol of remembrance for families of MH17 victims

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AMSTERDAM: Sunflowers normally bring out smiles, with their cheerful yellow hues.

Not so for Piet Ploeg, who lost his older brother Alex, his sister-in-law and nephew when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down out of the sky over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

“Before MH17, I liked sunflowers very much but after MH17, I have hated sunflowers because they bring back very sad memories. I really don’t like to see sunflowers,” he said, explaining that parts of the MH17 plane wreckage were found in a sunflower field in Ukraine.

He was speaking to Malaysian journalists during a visit to the MH17 National Monument in Vijfhuizen, near Schiphol Airport.

Ploeg, who is also chairman of ‘Stichting Vliegramp MH17’ (MH17 Aircraft Disaster Foundation), said they had planted sunflowers at the memorial field here in memory of the tragedy.

Also planted at the memorial are 298 trees, with each bearing a label with the name, age and nationality of all those killed in the incident.

“During the peak of summer, the trees are surrounded by wreaths of more than 20,000 sunflowers,” he said.

Asked about his feelings on the MH17 trial which commences tomorrow, Ploeg said he was looking forward to discovering the truth through the trial.

“During the trial, we will  know what happened, why it happened, and who was responsible,” he said.

Anton Kotte, the treasurer of ‘Stichting Vliegramp MH17’ also hopes the trial will bring justice to all family members of the victims. He lost his son, daughter-in-law, and six-year-old grandchild in the incident.

Tomorrow’s trial which will see criminal proceedings against four men accused of shooting down the Boeing 777 aircraft, will be conducted at the District Court of The Hague at the Schiphol Judicial Complex (JCS) in Badhoevedorp.

On trial are Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, as well as Ukraine national Leonid Kharchenko.

Flight MH17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur before it was shot down while flying over conflict-hit eastern Ukraine. The incident killed all 298 passengers and crew on board, including 43 Malaysian, 193 Dutch and 27 Australian nationals. — Bernama