Dutch welcome home first remains of MH17 victims

A lone bugler sounding the traditional military farewell “Last Post” marked the arrival Wednesday in the Netherlands of the first dead victims from the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

The grieving nation then held a moment of silence to honour those killed in the crash of the jetliner, downed last week by a suspected surface-to-air missile over war-torn eastern Ukraine.

In a ceremony rich with martial symbolism — from saluting soldiers to the haunting tune used to send war dead to their rest — 40 bodies borne in simple wooden caskets were solemnly unloaded from two military planes. Soldiers then walked them to waiting hearses and lowered them inside before rendering a final salute.

The only sounds: the hushed orders of soldiers and a whipping wind.

A long line of hearses, accompanied by police, carried the remains slowly toward a Dutch military base in Hilversum, where forensic investigators will begin the grim work of identifying them. Thousands of Dutch residents lined roads and overpasses along parts of the route to pay respects to the dead.

Some applauded as the hearses finally passed through the base gates, some tossed flowers on the vehicles. Others stood silently, red-eyed.

“The Netherlands are in shock, and Hilversum, as well,” said the city’s mayor, Pieter Broertjes.

Harun Calehr, whose two nephews were among the 298 people killed in the crash, called the ceremony “very moving and a beautiful tribute”.

“It feels like we’re just a big grieving family, and that somewhat helps in coping with this horrible, devastating event,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

The somber ceremony in Eindhoven followed a moving and meaningful send-off in Ukraine. There, white-gloved Ukrainian soldiers respectfully carried the bodies of the victims to the aircraft that flew them home to a waiting Dutch king and queen on the nation’s official day of mourning.

The honours afforded the remains contrasted sharply with how they were first treated in death — first blown out of the sky, then allowed to remain exposed to the elements for days. In some cases, furious Dutch officials say, they were stripped of their personal belongings.

Of the 298 people who died aboard Flight 17, 193 were Dutch citizens, and it was virtually impossible to miss the signs that the Netherlands was a nation in mourning Wednesday.

Flags were flown at half-staff, and the nation’s iconic windmills were placed in “mourning position” — wings tilted to the right. Courts suspended all trials, and even commercials were pulled from Dutch television and radio.

Buses and trains were to stop on roads nationwide during the moment of silence, and landings at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport were paused as a sign of respect. In the evening, hundreds attended a memorial service at St. Joris church in Amersfoort.

“Love will win. Light will break through,” one relative of a family killed in the crash told mourners.

The commemorations come amid continued confusion over who shot the plane down, and why, and what may have happened to the evidence where the plane fell to earth in fields deep in eastern Ukrainian territory controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

CNN