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A few months ago, Hans and Shaliza had decided it was time for the family to visit the Netherlands. Hans’s mother and father, the kids’ Dutch grandparents, had never seen the two youngest children in person. Hans had returned home every year or two, but not with his family; the cost of such a trip had been simply too high. But this time he set off, together with Shaliza and their three children—Margaux was now eight, Marnix twelve, and Piers fifteen—for a European adventure.

They had spent a week with Hans’s parents and the elderly couple had been overjoyed to finally be able to hug and hold the youngest of their grandchildren, who had greeted them with two fluffy koalas. With Hans’s sister and her family having come over from Denmark, it was the first time that the Van den Hende family had all been together.

Hans and Shaliza took their kids to Brighton during their European trip, going back to the university where they had met and fallen in love during their PhD studies. Then they had travelled to Denmark, visiting Hans’s sister and her family, and of course the kids had made a visit to Legoland at Billund while they were there. The final week had been spent back in the Netherlands before their flight home to Australia on MH17, via Kuala Lumpur.

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Helicopter rescue pilot Cameron Dalziel was also flying home to his family. Although born in Durban, Cameron, like Rob Ayley, also travelled on a British passport. The 43-year-old pilot had flown for the Canadian CHC Helicopter Corporation, working for them in Mozambique first of all. CHC Helicopter had its headquarters in Canada and operated in thirty countries around the world. In 2002 they had struck up a deal with Malaysia for offshore helicopter services and Cameron had recently applied for a transfer to Asia.

The application was granted and in October 2013 he had moved, together with his wife, Reine, and two sons, Sheldon and Cruz, to Miri, a coastal city in north-eastern Sarawak. Miri was an oil-mining town; he transported crews and personnel out to the rigs for Shell and Petronas and provided a 24-hour emergency backup.

Cameron Dalziel’s colourful rescue career had started in South Africa, where he had been a lifeguard with Lifesaving South Africa. Among the first helicopter pilots to be involved in swimmer rescues in South Africa, he flew all along the Durban coastline. Known as a very experienced and committed pilot, a veteran of countless missions, he was highly regarded by all in the field. He had been in Amsterdam for some time, completing a simulator training course there, but he had made a promise to his wife and kids that he would take them on a two-week holiday to South Africa once he got back home to Malaysia.

Chapter 10

Ukraine, March 2014

On 1 March 2014, separatist troops took over a government building in Donetsk city and raised the Russian flag. Just four days after this, the Ukrainian police charged the building and reclaimed it. A week later, 13 March was marked by violent clashes between pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian protesters in the city. A large group of pro-Russian protesters broke through a police cordon, attacking a smaller pro-Ukraine demonstration. A local pro-Ukraine activist was killed during these clashes while others, brutally beaten, were rushed to hospital. After this day of violence, pro-Ukraine residents of Donetsk decided not to organise any more peaceful demonstrations out of fear for their safety.

On 15 March, a crowd of pro-Russian protesters once again stormed government buildings in Donetsk and by mid-April thousands of activists had taken to the streets, demanding autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, together known as the Donbas region (short for ‘Donets Basin’). They wanted their region to become part of the Russian Federation, like Crimea. Some two thousand people came together at central Lenin Square in Donetsk chanting, ‘Russia, Russia.’

In towns and cities across the Donbas, government buildings were suddenly occupied by armed pro-Russian separatist insurgents. Roadblocks were set up and violent scuffles were reported between pro-Ukraine police and soldiers and pro-Russian separatists. As the rebels expanded their territorial control, some government officers fled their police stations, leaving behind their weaponry. A number of Ukrainian soldiers joined the separatists and handed over their tanks, armoured cars and guns in the process. It was reported that eight Ukrainian tanks had been confiscated by separatists.

As a result, the Ukrainian government launched a counteroffensive against insurgents in some parts of the Donbas region. In the towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk a special operation against the rebels was carried out. Ukrainian special forces managed to recapture the airport of Kramatorsk and surround Sloviansk. But the situation was getting out of hand and rapidly turning into a civil war.

On 17 April, Russia, Ukraine, the US and the EU agreed at talks in Geneva on steps to de-escalate the crisis in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s foreign minister agreed to suspend operations against pro-Russian militants in the east of the country over Easter. But the fragile truce was shattered when a gunfight broke out near the city of Sloviansk and three people were killed as Ukrainian security forces fended off a raid on a base in Mariupol and seized back control of the town hall in that port city. These were the first violent deaths in the east. Because of the hostilities, the Russian army resumed its exercises at the border with Ukraine.

Russian and Ukrainian sources differed greatly in the way they portrayed the pro-Russian demonstrators. The militants who had taken over government buildings in the Donetsk area were consistently labelled as ‘rebels’ and ‘terrorists’ by the Ukrainian authorities and the Western media, who typified them as a gruff and uncivilised lot who had seemingly come out of nowhere. They were said to be heavy drinkers, using coarse language; there was mounting suspicion that they had at some stage entered the country from Russia. When questioned by journalists, the soldiers often claimed to be ‘volunteers’, but authorities in Kiev believed some of them were in reality key figures in a proxy war tightly controlled by the Russian government.

Russian media and officials, however, referred to these men as ‘supporters of federalisation’, declaring that the Russian people merely sympathised with what they called ‘modest demands’ for adjustments to Ukraine’s constitution. It was claimed that these demands were vital to protect the rights and interests of the Russian-speaking people in the east of Ukraine.

Disturbing photos of masked gunmen toting Kalashnikov assault rifles and RPG-26 rocket launchers taking over government buildings all over the east of Ukraine found their way into the media as the self-proclaimed rebel leaders started creating their individual nations. These ‘leaders’ were steadily taking over control in Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region.

The separatists begged Putin to help them. They demanded protection from Russia and wanted their wish to become part of the Russian Federation recognised. But Putin was cautious and seemingly ignored their pleas; he insisted to the outside world that Russia had no hand in the violent seizure of government buildings across eastern Ukraine.

While the US and Russia blamed each other for the continuing unrest, the Ukrainian government was getting ready to launch further military operations. At the beginning of May, clashes in the Black Sea city of Odessa left forty-two people dead, most of them pro-Russian activists. Many of them perished while trapped in a burning building.

The separatists now decided to hold a referendum so that the people in the areas they currently controlled could have a say in the matter. After all, in Crimea the people’s opinion had also been asked and the leaders among the rebels thought it only fair that the same should occur in the Donbas area. A date for the referendum was set for 11 May.