MH17 homecoming

The first remains of Malaysian MH17 victims arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Friday. Malaysian officials and family members of the deceased held a solemn ceremony on the tarmac as members of the military guard carried flag-draped coffins to waiting hearses.

"Today we mourn the loss of our people. Today, we begin to bring them home," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement.

Forty-three of the 298 passengers on board MH17 were Malaysian nationals. An international team tasked with identifying the remains has, thus far, only named 30 of the Malaysian victims, some of which were crew members.

Only the Netherlands, with 193 victims, had a higher death toll from the downing of flight MH17.

People across the Southeast Asian country held a moment of silence at 10:55am local time (0255 UTC), roughly an hour after the plane carrying the remains of the 30 compatriots landed on Friday.

Private funerals were scheduled across Malaysia, where the deceased would be laid in their final resting places.

On July 17, Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Western leaders and the Ukrainian government have accused pro-Russian separatists of downing the commercial airliner with technology supplied by Russia.

The airline disaster was the second within less than a year for Malaysia. In March, Malaysian airliner MH370 disappeared during a scheduled flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. Investigators believe it flew off course and crashed in the South Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia.

The Malaysian government was heavily criticized for its handling of the MH370 investigation. Its successful negotiations with rebels in eastern Ukraine to begin recovery of the MH17 victims was, by contrast, a political triumph for Prime Minister Najib Razak.

kms/nm (AP, AFP)