KUALA LUMPUR, September 27 – The remains of the last member of a family of six which died in the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 tragedy in July have been identified, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said.
He said the remains of Muhammad Afruz Tambi, 13, were identified yesterday but had yet to be released by the authorities in Amsterdam for repatriation to Malaysia.The teenager was the son of Tambi Jiee and Ariza Ghazalee, who were killed along with all four of their children in the incident.
“(The remains of) five members of that family had already been flown back to Malaysia,” Liow told reporters after launching the 2014 World Maritime Day here Friday.
He said two more Malaysians on board the Boeing 777-200 aircraft, which was shot down in eastern Ukraine killing all 298 people aboard, were still unaccounted for. They are Siti Amirah Parawira and Shaliza Zaini Dewa.
Among those killed in the crash were 43 Malaysians, 15 of them crew members. Thirty-six of the remains have been repatriated to Malaysia to date.Liow noted that investigators from Malaysia and other countries were still unable to enter the crash site, located in a trouble-hit region, as the Ukraine government could not guarantee a safe corridor for them.
He said entering the site before winter set in was crucial due to the likelihood of difficulties it would cause in retrieving the wreckage as well as possible remains.Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had said that his Ukrainian counterpart Arseniy Yatsenyuk had conveyed that Kiev could not guarantee safe passage for an international investigation team to enter the MH17 crash site because it was unsafe.
Liow said the main focus now was retrieving the remaining bodies as well as plane debris and conducting an investigation to find out the truth and seek justice over the tragedy that shocked the world.”It must be said that it was our plane there and we only want to investigate what happened to Flight MH17,” he said.
– BERNAMA
