{"id":41122,"date":"2014-08-22T11:46:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T11:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=41122"},"modified":"2014-08-22T11:46:31","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T11:46:31","slug":"malaysia-observes-silence-for-mh17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=41122","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia observes silence for MH17"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\">Malaysians observed a moment of silence following the arrival in Kuala Lumpur of the bodies of 20 Malaysian victims of Flight MH17 that crashed in Ukraine in July.<\/p>\n<p>A specially chartered plane took off from Amsterdam and landed around 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT).<\/p>\n<p>National flags are flying at half-mast for the day of mourning.<\/p>\n<p>Flight MH17 is believed to have been shot down by a missile fired by pro-Russian rebels. They deny the claim.<\/p>\n<p>All 298 passengers and crew on board the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 died on 17 July.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\" alt=\"Malaysian Muslim and family members offer special prayers for the remains of co-pilot Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi (L) and flight attendant Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh (R), the Malaysians who perished aboard flight MH17 that was downed in eastern Ukraine at a mosque in Putrajaya, outside Kuala Lumpur on 22 August 2014\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/77107000\/jpg\/_77107104_453939056.jpg\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div>Co-pilot Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi and flight attendant Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh were mourned at a mosque<\/div>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Malaysia Airlines flight attendants cry during the arrival of the coffins at Kuala Lumpur airport. Photo: 22 August 2014\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/77104000\/jpg\/_77104621_023581452-1.jpg\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div>A group of Malaysia Airlines staff werre on the tarmac at the Kuala Lumpur airport<\/div>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Malaysian Army soldiers carry a coffin containing one of the bodies of the downed MH17 flight upon arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, 22 August 2014\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/77104000\/jpg\/_77104675_023581563-1.jpg\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div>The coffins were draped in the national flag of Malaysia<\/div>\n<p>From office workers to train drivers, many among the nation of 30 million observed a minute&#8217;s silence as white hearses drove the remains from the airport to private funerals in various provinces.<\/p>\n<p>The country&#8217;s public transportation, including the national rail system and Kuala Lumpur&#8217;s monorail, paused during the minute of silence.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Najib Razak, who turned his Twitter and Facebook pages black, wrote a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/najibrazak\/posts\/10152231153440952\">condolence message<\/a>\u00a0that was widely shared.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Last month, 43 Malaysian lives were taken over eastern Ukraine. Today we mourn the loss of our people. Today, we begin to bring them home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives. Today we stand with you, united as one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said in a statement that the government will &#8220;redouble&#8221; efforts to bring home the remaining victims.<\/p>\n<p>Malaysia Airlines is organising a public prayer session and a spokesman also expressed the company&#8217;s condolences.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Thursday, a contingent of Malaysian soldiers met the plane to escort the coffins to the hearses.<\/p>\n<p>All the coffins were draped in the national flag. Three of the 20 bodies have been cremated in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Investigation hampered<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The victims&#8217; bodies have been given to their families and relatives to be laid to rest.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first time Malaysia is holding a national day of mourning for civilian victims.<\/p>\n<p>The honour has traditionally been accorded only to the royal family and heads of government.<\/p>\n<p>Of the 43 Malaysian victims, 28 have been identified in the Netherlands so far, which is leading an international investigation into the crash in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>More than 200 coffins with remains of the victims have so far been taken to the Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p>But the inquiry is being hampered by continuing fighting between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian rebels near the crash site.<\/p>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A firefighter stands by debris of MH17\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/76970000\/jpg\/_76970919_452290740.jpg\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div>Debris from MH17 was scattered across 35 sq km (13 sq miles) of territory held by pro-Russian rebels<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Source: BBC<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malaysians observed a moment of silence following the arrival in Kuala Lumpur of the bodies of 20 Malaysian victims of Flight MH17 that crashed in Ukraine in July. A specially chartered plane took off from Amsterdam and landed around 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT). National flags are flying at half-mast for the day of mourning. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":41123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-41122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}