The parents of three children killed on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 described how it felt to have their bodies returned home to them in an emotional statement released Sunday.
“For the last three months, they have been lying in a cold room on the other side of the world,” Anthony Maslin and Marite Norris said in a statement Sunday. “Reconciling this fact with the knowledge that our children are here with us, spiritually, every moment is one of the most relentless and agonizing difficulties of our current life.”
The children were flying back home to Australia with their grandfather for the start of the school year following a family vacation in the Netherlands.
The parents stayed behind, planning to extend their vacation for a few extra days.
Mo, 12, Evie, 10 and Otis, 8, were killed on July 17 along with 35 other Australians and 298 people total when the plane crashed over Ukraine, presumably shot down by Russian separatist forces.
The bodies of the children weren’t returned to Australian soil until Thursday.
“Our lives are an ongoing hell,” said the parents. “The pain we are enduring is unfathomable, and we grieve alongside families in the Ukraine, the Netherlands, Russia, Malaysia, Australia and elsewhere.”
The couple thanked their friends and family for support, calling for an end to the violent conflict.
“Please respect our children's memory, and stop this pointless war.”
“No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for our children, for Mo, for Evie, for Otis. No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for Grandad Nick. No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for each other,” the couple said.
“Love, only love, it is all we have left."
Read the full statement, released through Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, here.
