Three years after the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Buk missile over Ukraine, friends and relatives of the 38 Australian citizens and residents who died were among the 2,000 people who attended the opening of a new memorial in the Netherlands to the 298 people who lost their lives.

The memorial at Vijfhuizen near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport features 298 young trees planted for each of those who died.

After the memorial’s emotional opening, attended by the Dutch king and queen, Sydney parents Meryn and John O’Brien visited their son Jack’s tree, a crab apple, as planes took off from the nearby airport the 25-year-old flew out of on 17 July 2014, returning from a European backpacking trip to resume his studies.

“It’s a big thing for us to come back to the airport that Jack left from,” Meryn O’Brien said. “We want Jack to walk back in the door but it’s a beautiful symbol,” she said of his tree, now hung with cards and ribbons sent by his grandmothers, friends, cousins and soccer mates.

O’Brien said her “beautiful child” was returning to Australia “to get on with his life” and he had been passionate about the things he cared about.

The commemoration came as international investigators continued their painstaking inquiry aimed at prosecuting those responsible for shooting down Flight 17 and killing all the passengers and crew.

A Dutch-led investigation, that includes Australians, has concluded that the Buk missile that downed MH17 was fired from rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine from a launcher that had crossed the border from Russia.

The Russians insist the Ukrainian military downed the aircraft, and have denounced the investigation’s conclusions as politically biased. 

The United States has urged other countries to cooperate in the investigation. The US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that Washington also welcomed a recent decision “to grant jurisdiction to the Dutch courts for the prosecution of those responsible for this tragedy”.

“We have full confidence in the ability of the Dutch criminal justice system to conduct a prosecution that is comprehensive, objective and just,” she said.

Investigators last year said they had pinpointed 100 people they want to speak to who are believed to have been involved in transporting the Buk missile launcher or its use.

Nations involved in the investigation have agreed to prosecute any suspects in the Netherlands, home to nearly 200 of the victims. The European Union foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, called for international cooperation in the hunt for the perpetrators.

“To ensure that those responsible for the downing of MH17 are held accountable and brought to justice, the criminal investigation needs the continuing support of the international community,” Mogherini said in a statement.

John O’Brien said some responsibility must lie with Ukraine for not closing its airspace during conflict, and with Malaysian Airlines, which with many other airlines continued to fly over Ukraine.

“We hold accountable the crew on the ground who shot the missile but there’s a level of responsibility and accountability all the way up the chain of command, all the way to the top,” he said.

The O’Briens know it may take years for the investigative and prosecution process to play out, but the 298 people whose names were read out by relatives at Monday’s ceremony had “lost the chance to live, so the truth matters”.

After a ceremony at which relatives read out the names of victims, Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima led 17 school children from the local community to lay sunflowers at the new memorial in a symbolic opening.

The monument, a curved steel wall and an eye-shaped sculpture engraved with the victims’ names, stands in an amphitheatre surrounded by 298 trees – still saplings – planted in the form of a commemorative ribbon. Each tree has a plaque bearing the name of a victim.

Australian Associated Press and Associated Press contributed to this report

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