‘Mr Putin, send my children home. Send them home. Please.’

A distraught mother had summed up the mood of anguish in the Netherlands at faltering efforts to repatriate the bodies of loved ones killed in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, appealing to Russian president Vladimir Putin to return the bodies of her son and his girlfriend.

Silene Fredriksz-Hoog-zand, whose son, Bryce, and his girlfriend, Daisy Oehlers, were killed when the plane was shot down over Ukraine, said she was appalled their bodies and those of other victims had been left lying for days.

“I am not a politician,” she said. “But I know for sure that Mr Putin can do something.”