Son of MH17 victims pleads for peace

Canberra, July 25: The son of an Australian couple who were killed in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash in

last week,on Friday said that justice will only be served when fighting in the region stops.

Paul Guard, whose parents Roger and Jill Guard were on the ill-fated flight said that the conflict in Ukraine was to be blame for his loved-ones' deaths, Xinhua reported.

"I believe that the party responsible for the death of my parents, is not just Vladimir Putin or the Russian military nor the Ukrainian government or the separatist rebels or even the person who pressed the button on the missile launcher, I believe it's the conflict itself," Guard said.

"If the conflict wasn't happening there, that plane would not have been shot down," he said.

"As long as that conflict goes on, as long as people are dying every day, there will be no justice for my parents and I say to world leaders, please find a way to stop that conflict," Guard added.

Flight MH17, a Boeing 777, was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed after being hit by a missile in Ukraine near the Russian border last Thursday, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.

This is the second major tragedy for Malaysia Airlines this year after flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew on board went missing while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing March 8. The flight remains untraced till date despite intense international search efforts.

IANS