MH17 survivors growing impatient

Relatives of the victims of flight MH17 are growing impatient because the investigation into the cause of the disaster is taking so long. According to Veeru Mewa of Beer Advocaten, which assists the relatives of 32 Dutch victims, the relatives still have confidence in the government, but the criticism is increasing. "Relatives say: what if it wasn't 196 Dutch people, but Americans? Then the disaster area would probably now have been US territory." On Monday Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin, like he promised to do. Abbott demanded an apology and compensation for the shooting down of MH17 from Putin. According to Abbott, he has very good reasons to believe that Russia was involved. This is an attitude that more and more Dutch people envy. "Abbott's attitude: that's exactly what I had hoped that the Netherlands would do," said a former diplomat. "We can make a stronger point. For example, by removing our ambassador." This is a dilemma for the Cabinet, which will be discussing the slow moving investigation in the Chamber today. The Netherlands is the leader of the investigation, and therefore has to avoid any appearance of bias. That makes it difficult to use a harsher tone with Putin and the separatists, without whose cooperation the Dutch investigators will not be able to access the crash site. Relatives of victims of the disaster have launched a support network for survivors called Stichting Vliegramp MH17. The two initiators, themselves relatives of victims, wants this network to be a platform on which kin can contact each other and get information. The foundation wants to help people with contacting authorities and keep track of the progress of the investigation.