As France said it would step up the search for debris from the doomed Malaysian flight MH370, angry relatives of the large contingent of Chinese passengers on board gathered near the Malaysian embassy in Beijing, demanding to be flown out to the presumed crash site near Reunion Island in the French Indian Ocean.
Police threw a tight security cordon around the embassy buildings, but around 30 protesters gathered nearby, with some demanding to be flown out to Reunion Island to await further news, Agence-France Presse reported.
Some relatives say they refuse to believe the flight crashed or that their loved ones are dead, and some of Friday's protesters wore white T-shirts printed with the words: "Praying for the safe return of MH370," AFP said.
Malaysian officials have said that a wing section found on Reunion Island definitely came from the doomed aircraft, although the link has yet to be confirmed by French investigators.
The Boeing 777 aircraft disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014 on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, most of them Chinese citizens.
Relatives told RFA in recent interviews that they won't give up their demand to be flown to the site.
"We have to go to Reunion, because we want to see our children," Bao Lanfang, whose son-in-law and grandson were both aboard the flight, told RFA. "They say they are dead, but we want to see the remains."
"I have been insisting that this old lady wants to see the remains," she said. "I'll never give up until they produce them."
Authorities 'out of touch'
Another relative, Dai Shuqin, said the location of the debris hasn't given the families of the presumed victims closure at all, and accused Malaysia Airlines of lying about their responsibility to the relatives.
"They said in their communiqué that they would stay in touch with the relatives, but I never received that text [about the debris]," she said. "None of us did."
"They also claim to have held a meeting with us on July 19 but there was no meeting on July 19; it was all lies," Dai said.
"They say one thing in public, but in private it's another matter."
Artist Xi Lipu said he is still reeling from the fact that he narrowly avoided boarding MH370 along with his fellow calligraphers in a group that was heading back to Beijing after a trip to Malaysia.
"As soon as I think about it, I get terrified," Xu said. "If I hadn't made a sudden change of plans, they still wouldn't have found me to this day."
"There was a teacher who I spoke with the most in the few days that we were in Malaysia, and I got in touch with his relatives, and his daughter is devastated," Xu said.
"I still don't want to talk about it much, because as soon as I start to talk about it, I feel the pain all over again," he said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Thursday that a piece of wing wreckage found washed up on Reunion was from the plane, while French investigators said there was a "very high probability" it came from MH370.
Malaysian officials also said that aircraft seat cushions and windows had turned up on Reunion, but that their origin "had to be verified by the French authorities."
Zhang Jianyi, who had a daughter and granddaughter on the plane, told AFP: "We will all go there together. That's what international agreements require. And Malaysia is the relevant country to arrange it."
Reported by Pan Jiaqing and Wei Ling for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.