James Rizk, son of MH17 victims Albert and Maree Rizk, has said he does not blame Malaysia Airlines for flying over the Ukraine despite warnings it was an unsafe conflict zone.
”I have no problem at all with Malaysia Airlines, it’s not like they wanted it to happen,” Mr Rizk said on radio station Triple M.
Mr Rizk, 22, said his parents’ friends Ross and Sue Campbell, who travelled with them in Europe, had travelled the ”exact same route a few hours before” on a different plane.
”It is just life, it is just luck, it is surreal. You cannot blame anyone for this except the people who did it,” he said.
”I am not big into politics or anything like that but obviously somebody is to blame for this sort of stuff.”
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He learnt of the tragedy after waking at about 6am on Friday and finding a series of text messages and a call from a friend who said he should turn on the television to see the news.
At first he was not even sure of his parents’ flight number. He then got in touch with their travelling companions who confirmed they were due to be on the flight. A call to federal authorities confirmed the grim news that they had boarded the plane.
Mr Rizk, who worked with his father in the real estate business, and his sister Vanessa, who works in community services, had been surrounded by friends and family since they heard the news. He said the federal government had flown family members from Queensland to be with them.
”We haven’t really spent a moment alone. That’s what we want, that’s what we need. We understand it has changed our lives forever,” he said.
Mr Rizk said he had prepared himself for a long wait for his parents’ bodies but was avoiding watching television coverage of the crash site.
He said they had cancelled their parents’ credit cards after they became aware of looting in the fields where the plane was shot down.
Mr Rizk gave a tribute to both his parents on radio and asked that they be left by other media to deal with the family tragedy.
“My mother was a loving person and took care of anything that anyone ever wanted,” Mr Rizk said.
He spoke of his grandfather’s wife, Kaylene Mann, who has suffered a double tragedy with the loss of her brother, Rod Burrows, in the disappeared flight MH370. Mr Rizk said she and her family were ”reliving” the tragedy.
He said his father Albert was born in Egypt and arrived in Australia as a four-year-old. He grew up in Broadmeadows and attended Broadmeadows High School.
”Broady High shaped him as a person, [it was a] tough area growing up,” Mr Rizk said.
He thanked family members, the Sunbury football community and his girlfriend for supporting him.
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