Grieving father of MH17 victim pens open letter to Putin

'Many thanks to the Separatist leaders of Ukrainian government for the murder of my dear and only child,' Hans de Borst writes

Elsemiek de Borst
Elsemiek de Borst (Hans de Borst/Facebook)

A grief-stricken father whose 17-year-old daughter was a passenger on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 has penned an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the letter posted to Facebook, Hans de Borst wrote that his daughter, Elsemiek de Borst, had planned to become an engineer.

"Elsemiek would next year take her final exam, along with her best friends Julia and Marina, and she did well in school," de Borst wrote. "She then wanted to go to TU Delft to study engineering, and she was looking forward to it! She is suddenly no more! From the air she was shot in a foreign country where a war is going on."

Elsemiek, he wrote, was traveling from The Hague to Malaysia with her mother (de Borst's ex-wife), brother and stepfather on MH17. She was one of 193 Dutch victims of the crash. The Boeing 777 en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam was shot down over the Russia-Ukraine border, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

"Many thanks to the Separatist leaders of Ukrainian government for the murder of my dear and only child," de Borst wrote. "Gentlemen of the above, I hope you're proud of including her and her young life was shot up too, and you can look in the mirror!

"Thanks again," he added, signing the letter: "Sincerely, Elsemiek's father, Hans de Borst from Monster, whose life is ruined."

De Borst wasn't the only grieving Dutch parent to address Putin.

"Mr. Putin, send my children home," Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose son Bryce and his girlfriend, Daisy Oehlers, were among those killed in the crash, told Sky TV. "Send them home. Please."

Fredriksz-Hoogzand told the Associated Press she was appalled at the way the crash site was being handled.

"I am not a politician," she said on Sunday. "But I know for sure that Mr. Putin can do something.

"No words can describe it," Fredriksz-Hoogzand continued. "Bodies are just lying there for three days in the hot sun. There are people who have this on their conscience. There are families who can never hold the body of a child or a mother."