Relatives of MH17 victims have begun the heartbreaking journey to bring them home.

"OUR pain is intense and relentless. We live in a hell beyond hell."

That’s the message of Perth parents Anthony Maslin and Rin Norris, who lost their three children, as well as Mrs Norris’s father, Nick Norris, when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot out of the sky last Thursday.

The Maslin children — Mo, 12, Evie, 10 and Otis, 8 — were returning home from a holiday in Amsterdam in time for the school term.

Their parents chose to stay on for a few days — missing the doomed flight that killed their family.

In their first public statement since returning to WA on Saturday, the heartbroken parents said no one deserves the pain they are suffering, “not even the people who shot our whole family out of the sky”.

The statement, printed in full below, was released through the Department of Foreign Affairs this afternoon.

News_Image_File: Evie, 10, Mo, 12, and Otis Maslin, 8. Picture supplied by the Maslin family.

STATEMENT FROM ANTHONY MASLIN AND RIN NORRIS

A message to the soldiers in the Ukraine, the politicians, the media, our friends and family.

Our pain is intense and relentless. We live in a hell beyond hell.

Our babies are not here with us — we need to live with this act of horror, every day and every moment for the rest of our lives.

No one deserves what we are going through.

Not even the people who shot our whole family out of the sky.

No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for our children, for Mo, for Evie, for Otis.

No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for Grandad Nick.

No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for each other.

This is a revelation that gives us some comfort.

We would ask everyone to remember this when you are making any decisions that affect us and the other victims of this horror.

So far, every moment since we arrived home, we’ve been surrounded by family and friends. We desperately pray that this continues, because this expression of love is what is keeping us alive. We want to continue to know about your lives, all the good and all the bad. We no longer have lives that we want to live by ourselves. So we’d like to take the chance to thank everyone, all our incredible friends, family and communities, and to tell you all that we love you very much.

We would also like to thank the people at DFAT; the local co-ordinator Claire and most sincerely, Diana and Adrian from The Hague, without whom we would not be here. We ask the media to respect the privacy of our family and friends — pain is not a story.

Yours truly

Anthony Maslin & Marite Norris

News_Image_File: Nick Norris, who was with his grandchildren Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin, on MH17. This picture was supplied by the Maslin-Norris family.