BBC News, The Hague :
This is a traumatic time for families who lost 298 loved ones on flight MH17. Now they hope the trial of four men will provide answers to the downing of the Malaysian Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine in July 2014.
In the first week of the trial they have heard how distinctive bow tie-shaped steel fragments, consistent with those in a surface-to-air Buk missile warhead, were among those found lodged in the bodies of the crew, passengers’ luggage and wreckage.
Listening in the high-security court next to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, Silene Fredriksz was transported back to the horror of imagining the final moments of her 23-year-old son Bryce.
“The thought of what happened with the children when the plane was hit, how long were they conscious or not? Were they in shock, or what?” she said.
These agonising, exhausting questions plague so many of the relatives. There were 80 children on board flight MH17, which was shot down over a combat zone in eastern Ukraine, en route from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
Three Russians and a Ukrainian are accused of downing the plane and murdering everyone on board. All are suspected of being key pro-Russian separatists and none are attending the trial.
The most senior, Igor Girkin (also known as Strelkov), was commanding Russian-backed separatists in the area. Only one, Oleg Pulatov, has employed a team of Dutch lawyers to represent him.
