THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The human cost of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 hit home around the world Friday, upending scores of families and small communities spanning half of the planet, from a Dutch fishing village to an Australian football club and a Dubai cake store.
Relatives and colleagues paid emotional tribute to the dead. Students gathered to pray for lost friends, and Tour de France cyclists paused for a moment’s silence in memory of the 298 people killed in Ukraine.
The victims came from 11 countries and all walks of life. They included an acclaimed AIDS researcher from Amsterdam, a nun and teacher from Sydney, a Dutch senator, and a World Health Organization spokesman.
‘‘Today, the stories are emerging about individual travelers,’’ Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. ‘‘Youngsters, a big group of scientists, sometimes whole families who yesterday afternoon got on board and unknowingly headed toward their hopeless fate.’’
Because the plane took off from Amsterdam, most were Dutch headed for Kuala Lumpur. But others were from elsewhere in Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. One was a dual US-Dutch citizen, Malaysia Airlines said.
In Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, the Foreign Ministry announced that it planned to transport the victims to a special laboratory in the northeast city of Kharkiv, outside of rebel control, and was arranging visas and free hotel accommodations in Kiev and Kharkiv for relatives of the victims.
They left behind relatives searching for answers and clinging to memories.
‘‘It’s a black day,’’ said Ron Peter Pabellon, a Filipino cake maker in Dubai who fears he lost an aunt, uncle, and two cousins, one of them his best friend. ‘‘I want to see [them] with my own eyes because I don’t want to accept. I don’t want to believe.’’
The crash heaped tragedy upon tragedy for one Australian family that also had relatives aboard the Malaysian Airlines plane that vanished in March. Kaylene Mann’s brother, Rod Burrows, and sister-in-law, Mary Burrows, were on Flight 370, which is believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean but has never been found. On Friday, Mann learned that her stepdaughter, Maree Rizk, was killed on Flight 17. ‘‘It’s just brought everyone, everything back,’’ said Greg Burrows, Mann’s brother. ‘‘It’s just . . . ripped our guts again.’’
Several passengers on Flight 17 were traveling to Melbourne for a major international AIDS conference. The United Nations organization UNAIDS said the crash claimed ‘‘some of the finest academics, health care workers and activists’’ working on the disease. The Academic Medical Center hospital in Amsterdam said two of its staff members, including renowned AIDS researcher Joep Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society, and his colleague Jacqueline van Tongeren were believed to have perished.
Karlijn Keijzer, a 25-year-old Dutch graduate student at Indiana University, was mourned by rowing communities on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Amsterdam student rowing club Skoll said on its website that Keijzer died with another rower from the club, Laurens van der Graaff, on their way to a vacation together.
In the close-knit fishing village of Volendam, near the Dutch capital, flowers were laid outside a florist’s shop. The shop’s owner and her boyfriend were among the victims.
A handwritten note taped to the storefront above a bunch of orange roses read: ‘‘Dear Cor and Neeltje. This is unwanted, unbelievable and unfair. Rest in peace. We will never forget you.’’
Dutch AIDS activist Pim de Kuijer, once a political intern of former Dutch lawmaker Lousewies van der Laan, was also killed. On Twitter, Van der Laan called him ‘‘a brilliant, inspiring and caring activist fighting for equality and helping AIDS victims around the world.’’
The dead included a Dutch senator, Willem Witteveen of the Labor Party.
Students at the Kincoppal-Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart in Sydney gathered Friday for a special prayer meeting to remember Sister Philomene Tiernan, a 77-year-old teacher who was killed.
‘‘For me, she’s been a great mentor, and she’s also a personal friend,’’ Principal Hilary Johnston-Croke said, her voice breaking.
Victoria state real estate agent Albert Rizk and his wife, Maree Rizk, were both killed, leaving a hole in a local football club where they volunteered and their son, James, played.
Material from The New York Times was used in this report.