MH17 relatives wait for answers a year on

On their son Bryce’s birthday this year, Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand and her husband Rob went to a Dutch airbase, watched pall bearers solemnly unload seven coffins from a military cargo plane and wondered if they contained parts of the remains of Bryce or his girlfriend Daisy Oehlers.

For many families of the 298 people killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down on July 17 last year over eastern Ukraine, uncertainty and agonising waiting is still woven into the fabric of life a year later.

“Your world stops with a bang”, Silene said at her home in Rotterdam, where flowers and mementoes to Bryce and Daisy still dominate the living room. The couple’s bedroom is still the same disorderly mess it was the day they left for a holiday to Bali. “Everything around you continues. You try to participate, but it’s just hard.”

As if waiting for remains of loved ones were not bad enough, families also still have not received conclusive answers to many questions about the crash.

Who brought down the plane? Will the perpetrators ever face justice? Why was the Boeing 777 heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur even flying over a war zone?

International investigators say it will be October before they publish the official cause of the crash. A Dutch-led criminal investigation into the crash won’t be done until the end of the year — adding to family frustrations.

“I understand their impatience. They want to know exactly what happened. They want answers. Many big criminal investigations do take a lot of time and because of all the circumstances this investigation is not an easy one”, said Fred Westerbeke, the prosecutor leading the criminal probe.

The criminal investigation is focusing on a BUK surface-to-air missile downing MH17 as the most likely scenario but is also working to rule out other possible causes.

The Dutch Safety Board said in a preliminary report that the plane was hit by multiple high-energy objects, a conclusion experts said bears the hallmarks of a missile strike.

Ukraine blames Russian-backed separatist rebels, Moscow blames Ukraine. Countries who lost citizens in the disaster are trying to establish a UN tribunal to prosecute any suspects eventually identified.