An Australian couple, who tragically lost three young children and the kids’ grandfather in the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash, say life without their loved ones is “a hell beyond hell.”
“Our pain is intense and relentless,” Anthony Maslin and Rin Norris said in a statement released by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday. “Our babies are not here with us — we need to live with this act of horror, every day and every moment for the rest of our lives.”
After a “wonderful” family vacation, Maslin and Norris said goodbye to their kids — Mo, 12, Evie, 10, and Otis, 8 — in Amsterdam last Thursday, reports News.com.au.
They’d decided to stay in the Netherlands for a few extra days, while the children’s grandfather, Nick Norris, shepherded them home to prepare for a new school year.
But the four family members never made it home, their lives cut short when a missile struck their airplane over eastern Ukraine.
“No one deserves what we are going through,” the couple said. “Not even the people who shot our whole family out of the sky.”
Since the tragedy, Maslin has taken an “indefinite” leave from his job as a managing director at mining company Buxton Resources.
The couple’s eldest son, Mo, was a club soccer player. On Saturday, Rin Norris sobbed as his teammates released yellow and green balloons in his memory, reports News.com.au.
“So far, every moment since we arrived home, we’ve been surrounded by family and friends,” the parents said in the statement. “We desperately pray that this continues, because this expression of love is what is keeping us alive.”