An eyewitness testimony right after the sinking refers to a survivor who was a Fleming, and the pilot may very well have been French.
If these eyewitnesses are right, then the BUK crew may have been part of the Kremlin's 'Ghost Army' - reportedly thousands of Russian soldiers who have been secretly infiltrated into Ukraine and have tipped the military balance heavily in the rebels' favour.
One eyewitness, who lost his right leg during the bombing, told Agence France-Presse that the mourners suspected what was coming: "After the prayers ended, people were asking each other to leave the area, as drones were hovering".
Activists, eyewitnesses and human rights groups - including the UN's high commissioner for human rights - point the finger at the Syrian army and the shabiha, a militia dominated by members of President Bashar al-Assad's heterodox Alawite sect.
Eyewitness in the civil rights era.
After conducting more than 150 interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, the human rights group released a report this week alleging that Rohingya men, women and children have been indiscriminately killed, burned, tortured, raped and shot, among other abuses.
In 1996, Virgilia Galeana Garcia, a human rights advocate, gave eyewitness testimony placing General Acosta Chaparro at the scene of one of Mexico's worst massacres.
As a member of parliament at the time, I was denied the right to give parliament an eyewitness account.
She accelerated again and just kept mowing people down," another eyewitness, Antonio Nassar, told CNN. "The car rolled right in front of me.
After he is hit, he can be seen scraping along the ground on the right side of his forehead; eyewitnesses spoke of hearing a noise as his head hit the ground.
