As I reported earlier, over 100 HIV/AIDS researchers on their way to the 2014 World AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, died on the Malaysia Airlines flight shot down yesterday.
President Obama mentioned them and their contributions today in a press conference.
Let me close by making one additional comment. On board Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, there were apparently nearly 100 researchers and advocates traveling to an international conference in Australia dedicated to combating AIDS/HIV. These were men and women who had dedicated their own lives to saving the lives of others and they were taken from us in a senseless act of violence.
In this world today, we shouldn’t forget that in the midst of conflict and killing, there are people like these — people who are focused on what can be built rather than what can be destroyed; people who are focused on how they can help people that they’ve never met; people who define themselves not by what makes them different from other people but by the humanity that we hold in common.
It’s important for us to lift them up and to affirm their lives. And it’s time for us to heed their example.
(via transcript)