MH17: ‘The extent of our loss is hard to comprehend’

The International Aids conference does not for formally open until Sunday evening and it is then when tributes will be paid to the delegates killed on board Flight MH17.

So far, it has been officially confirmed that six people travelling to the conference were killed, including Professor Joep Lange, a former president of the International Aids Society (IAS) and co-director of the HIV Netherlands Australia Research Collaboration.

It is not the 100 suggested at one stage but the loss remains as devastating as ever.

I was standing next to Professor Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, the current IAS President, when she delivered the statement confirming the names of the six delegates. There were tears in her eyes, her voices wavered, she looked, quite frankly, heartbroken.

She said:  “The extent of our loss is hard to comprehend or express.

“We grieve alongside all of those throughout the world who have lost friends and family in this senseless tragedy.”

The five others named are:  Lucid van Mens, Director AIDS Action Europe, Maria Adriana de Schutter, AIDS Action Europe, Glenn Thomas, World Health Organisation and Jacqueline van Tongeren, Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development and also the partner of Professor Lange.

Follow Victoria Macdonald on Twitter: @vsmacdonald