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Grieving Mother Begs Putin to 'Send My Children Home' as Pro-Russian Rebels Take 200 Bodies From Flight MH17 Crash Site

Heartbroken Dutch mother, Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand (r) and her husband Robert (l) grieve Sunday for their 23-year—old son Bryce and his 20-year-old girlfriend Daisy Oehlers who were both killed in the MH17 tragedy in eastern Ukraine last Thursday.
Heartbroken Dutch mother, Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand (r) and her husband Robert (l) grieve Sunday for their 23-year—old son Bryce and his 20-year-old girlfriend Daisy Oehlers who were both killed in the MH17 tragedy in eastern Ukraine last Thursday. | (Photo: Screen Grab via YouTube/newstoday towatch)

A grief-stricken Dutch mother whose son and his girlfriend were among the 298 victims who died after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down from the sky in eastern Ukraine last Thursday, became the face of Netherland's grief Sunday when she publicly pleaded with Russian President Vladimir Putin to "send my children home".

"I want everybody to do the best they can to bring all the bodies back as soon as possible. They've been lying there for three days, four days I don't know anymore," the mother, Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand said in a BBC interview as her husband Robert tried comforting her silently.

The couple's 23-year-old son Bryce and his 20-year-old girlfriend Daisy Oehlers, were heading to the island of Bali in Indonesia for a holiday on Flight MH17 when they perished with 296 others on the doomed flight.
Of the 11 nationalities represented on the flight, nearly two-thirds, 192 of them were Dutch citizens.

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And as the political posturing unfolding as Russian and Ukrainian officials try to deflect blame for the tragedy, the grieving mother appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to do something to help distraught families get the bodies of their loved ones back.

"I am not a politician," Fredriksz-Hoogzand told The Associated Press. "But I know for sure that Mr. Putin can do something."

Prior to the AP interview, she made a heart-rending plea to Putin on Sky TV say: "Mr. Putin, send my children home. Send them home. Please."

A CBC report Sunday said pro-Moscow rebels stocked nearly 200 bodies from the crash site into four refrigerated boxcars. Cranes at the crash scene also moved large pieces of the fragmented Boeing 777, drawing strong rebuke from western leaders that the rebels were compromising the crash site.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry described the removal of the bodies from the crash site to CNN's Candy Crowley as: "Drunken separatists piling the remains of people into trucks in an unceremonious fashion ... interfering with the evidence in the location."

He further told NBC's "Meet the Press" that there is a "buildup of extraordinary circumstantial evidence" about the crash that Russia "needs to help account for."

On Monday, CNN reported that workers had recovered 282 bodies and 251 of them were stored in the refrigerated train cars near the crash site. Dutch forensics experts on the scene said they were "more or less" satisfied with how the bodies were being stored," according to Michael Bociurkiw, the spokesman for monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The train with the bodies is expected to be allowed to travel to the eastern city of Kharkiv at 7 p.m. (noon ET) Ukraine Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said. From there, government officials said the bodies will eventually be taken to Amsterdam.

In the meantime, Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand and her husband are waiting in pain to be reunited with the bodies of their son and his girlfriend.

"When I'm in my bed at night, I see my son lying on the ground. I see daisy, I see Bryce. I see them in my head. I see it," she said breaking down.

"I have to find a way to live…without those two kids. Everywhere I look in this house I see them. They're everywhere. I don't know how we're gonna do it."

Contact: leonardo.blair@christianpost.com Follow Leonardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Follow Leonardo Blair on Facebook: LeoBlairChristianPost

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