{{he bodies of 20 Malaysian victims of Flight MH17 that crashed in Ukraine in July have arrived in Kuala Lumpur, as the nation holds a day of mourning.<\/p>\n
A specially chartered plane took off from Amsterdam and landed around 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT).<\/p>\n
National flags will be flying at half-mast across the country and a minute of silence will be observed.<\/p>\n
Flight MH17 is believed to have been shot down by a missile fired by pro-Russian rebels. They deny the claim.<\/p>\n
All 298 passengers and crew on board the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 died on 17 July.}}<\/p>\n
A small contingent of Malaysian soldiers marched up to the plane to escort the coffins as they are being unloaded.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, large white funeral hearses lined up on the tarmac to receive the bodies.<\/p>\n
All the coffins are draped in the national flag. Three of the 20 bodies have been cremated in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
The country’s public transportation, including the national rail system and Kuala Lumpur’s monorail, will also come to a standstill to observe two minutes of silence, said The New Straits Times.<\/p>\n
Toll booths on highways will have electronic signs urging drivers to alight from their vehicles.<\/p>\n
Both The New Straits Times and the Star newspapers have darkened their mastheads on their websites as a sign of respect.<\/p>\n
A Malaysia Airlines spokesman said the company would organise a prayer session, which would be made open to the public to offer their respects and prayers.<\/p>\n
BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{he bodies of 20 Malaysian victims of Flight MH17 that crashed in Ukraine in July have arrived in Kuala Lumpur, as the nation holds a day of mourning. A specially chartered plane took off from Amsterdam and landed around 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT). National flags will be flying at half-mast across the country and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000053584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000053584,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15917.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15917.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15917.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15917.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15917.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15917.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000053584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15917"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15917"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}