As the Netherlands began coming to terms yesterday with the dreadful loss of life aboard flight MH17, it seemed virtually everyone in this tiny country knew someone who had been lost or who had lost a relative – sometimes even an entire family.
Dozens of the 189 Dutch passengers who died when the Malaysia Airlines jet crashed in Ukraine were on their way to an international Aids conference in the Australian city of Melbourne – among them the eminent scientist, Prof Joep Lange, and his wife and colleague, Jacqueline van Tongeren.
A professor of medicine at the University of Amsterdam, Prof Lange had been involved in HIV research since the virus first emerged in the 1980s, and was regarded as “a brilliant mind” and one of the global leaders in the fight against the disease.
He was president of the International Aids Society between 2002 and 2004, and last night the society said it had "truly lost a giant". It pledged that the conference would go ahead, taking "opportunities to reflect and remember those we have lost".
Prof Lange – the 2007 recipient of the Eijkman Medal for distinguished research – and Dr Van Tongeren leave behind them five daughters.
One former colleague, Dr Seema Yasmin, recalled: “Anyone who knew him will tell you how Joep was often cooking for his five girls at the same time as chairing a conference call on some complex aspect of HIV research.
“I asked him jokingly once why he worked so hard, and he replied, ‘Do you know how much it costs to buy shoes for five girls?’ He was a kind man and a true humanitarian.”
Another well-known Aids campaigner Pim de Kuijer, a parliamentary lobbyist for Stop Aids Now! was also among the dead. He too was en route to Australia on this occasion, but in the past had worked as an election observer for the Dutch foreign ministry in both Russia and Ukraine.
Going on holiday
Also killed was Antoine van Veldhuizen, managing partner of the website Expatica.com, who was going on a long-anticipated holiday with his wife, Simone, and their two young sons, Quint and Pijke. A message from Expatica said they were “widely loved and will be truly missed”.
Labour Party senator Willem Witteveen (62), a professor of Law at Tilburg University, died along with his wife, Lidwien, and their daughter, Marit. The president of the Senate paid tribute last night to his selfless political commitment.
In a terrible twist of fate, one young passenger, Cor Pan, who had been posting pictures of his holiday destination on Facebook in recent days, yesterday posted a photograph of flight MH17 just before he boarded, joking in the caption, “If it disappears, this is what it looks like . . .”
Mr Pan is believed to have been travelling with his girlfriend, Neeltje Tol, and last night one friend left the post, “Rest in peace, Cor and Neel. This is surreal. With sympathy for family and friends.”
In one of the most shocking among many shocking cases, an entire family of six – two parents and four children – from the tiny village of Neerkant, near Brabant, in the south of the country, was wiped out in the crash. Neighbours have been leaving teddy bears and flowers outside their empty home.
By lunchtime yesterday, an extraordinary 12,000 people had already signed an online book of condolences for the victims, now thought to have included as many as 80 children, in most cases looking forward to summer holidays in the sun with their families.
Overbooked
However, there were stories too of those who sidestepped fate. One family from Zeeland, in the south-west of the country, arrived at Schiphol ready to board the aircraft, only to find the flight had been overbooked.
Gert Jansen, his wife, Pudji, and their son, Pasha, were given alternative seats on a KLM flight to Dubai and left safely – only to find out later what might have been, said Mr Jansen’s brother, Paul.
Barry Sim from Aberdeenshire, travelling with his wife, Izzy, and their baby son, had a similar experience and found it difficult to contain their relief.
Ms Sim reflected: “Now we feel there must have been someone watching over us and saying, ‘You must not get on that flight’.”
