Memorial Service Marks One-Year Anniversary Of MH17 Aerial Disaster

It has been a whole year since the news broke about the MH17 disaster that killed all 298 people on board of whom, 39 were Australian. The families of the victims gathered to pay respect to the departed souls at a memorial service held to mark the one-year anniversary of the unfortunate event.

A commemorative plaque bearing the victims’ names was inaugurated by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and was laid on the ground in a garden outside the Parliament. Mourners came one by one and placed flowers on a wreath that was seated at the centre of the Great Hall of Parliament.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott delivered an emotional speech at the service, while trying to hold back tears. "In the worst of times, you have displayed the strength of giants and the grace of angels, and I am humbled by your example," he said.

"Now we owe it to the dead to bring the guilty to justice. We owe it to the living to work for a more just and humane world, a world where people can turn their faces to the sun with the shadows behind them like the sun flowers blooming again in the fields where MH17 came down," he added.

A statement by the Maslin family of Perth, in memory of the three children and their grandfather who they lost to the crash, was read out by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. It read; “"No hate in the world will ever be as strong as the love we have for Mo, for Evie, for Otis, no hate in the world will ever be as strong as the love we have for granddad Nick".

According to CNN, the U.S. officials have concluded that the Malaysian Airlines MH 17 was shot in the air and brought down whereas according to the Dutch investigators the evidences point pro-Russian rebels to be responsible for the disaster.

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