Flight MH17 aftermath - Harrowing fragments of humanity

Authorities in Ukraine yesterday released a photograph of the arrival by train to government-held territory of the remains of those who died onboard Malaysia Airline plane MH17.

It shows a local policeman and a Dutch investigator keeping their distance from the stench-filled, dirty carriage into which fragments of humanity had been unceremoniously tossed. In the darkened corner of the carriage lie dozens of black refuse sacks. These are the decaying remains of many of the 298 victims of the plane downed by a Russian-made missile over Ukraine.

It could be a scene from Schindler’s List, The Pianist, or any other movie depicting the transport of Jews to Nazi death camps.

If the victims’ arrival was less than auspicious, so was their departure. The short, grey transporter had begun its long journey across eastern Ukraine on Monday from the town of Torez in Donetsk, a region under rebel control. The bodies were sent off without ceremony.

As The New York Times observed, there was just a handful of armed rebels on the platform when the train pulled out of the remote railway station, “leaving behind a pile of belongings dumped on the platform — a beige purse, a North Face backpack, a child’s pink suitcase”.

Before that, the body parts and traces of 298 lives — among them 80 children — lay rotting in a wheat field until local coal miners, horrified by what they saw, volunteered to gather them up.

For a brief period, the bodies became the focus of a political tug of war between Ukrainian authorities and the rebels they accused of blocking access to the crash site. The rebels, in turn, insisted that they would hand over the bodies only to international representatives.

The bodies are now being taken to the Netherlands, where two thirds of the victims came from. Anger is growing there, with many deploring the chaotic handling of the bodies at the crash site.

While the UN condemns the mass murder and the US and Russia indulge in a war of words over who is to blame, the human cost on families and loved ones should not be forgotten.

In that respect, the anguished words of a Dutch father are worth bearing in mind, as they reveal the horror behind the headlines. He has written a savagely ironic open letter to those responsible, “thanking” them for killing his 17-year-old daughter Elsemiek, “my dear and only child”.

“Thank you very much Mr [Russian president Vladimir] Putin, separatist leaders, or the Ukrainian government, for murdering my dear and only child,” Hans de Borst wrote in the letter published by Dutch media. “Suddenly she’s gone. Shot out of the sky in a foreign war-torn country.

“Elsemiek was going to finish school next year with her best friends Julia and Marine [who were not on the flight], and she was doing well. She wanted to study civil engineering at Delft University, and she was really excited. I hope that you’re proud to have destroyed her young life and that you can look at yourself in the mirror.”