Several dozen Chinese relatives of passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight yesterday demanded an apology from Malaysia for its handling of the search for the plane and for its prime minister's statement that it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.

Holding up banners that read: 'We want evidence, truth, dignity" in Chinese, and "Hand us the murderer. Tell us the truth. Give us our relatives back" in English, the group staged a protest at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur just hours after flying in from Beijing.

Two-thirds of the 227 passengers on board the plane that disappeared on March 8 were Chinese.

The protesters repeatedly chanted slogans in Chinese: "We want evidence! We want the truth! We want our relatives!"

Jiang Hui, the relatives' designated representative, said they wanted a government apology for what they see as missteps in the initial handling of the disaster as well as for Prime Minister Najib Razak's statement that indicated the plane had crashed with no survivors.

Jiang said the relatives felt that conclusion was announced without sufficient evidence.

Jiang said the group wanted to meet airline and government officials, although he stopped short of saying that included Najib, as earlier proposed by some relatives.

In Beijing, tensions are still high at a hotel where Chinese relatives have been meeting Malaysian representatives. Yesterday, one woman called Malaysia Airlines "criminal suspects" to applause among the crowd of about 250 relatives.

Najib went on television on March 24 to say that based on radar and satellite analysis the Boeing 777 had crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, but there were lingering questions because there was no physical evidence.

That wariness on the part of the relatives was also fueled by missteps at the beginning of the search, which started in waters off Vietnam, then swung to areas west of Malaysia and Indonesia, and then as radar and satellite information was further analyzed, to southwest of Australia and now to a second zone farther northeast.

"We hope that in these days, we can meet with technical teams involved in the search, and hold talks with Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian government. We hope that these discussions will not be like they had been in Beijing, with wishy-washy answers," Jiang said.

Jiang said the relatives want the airline to set up meetings with representatives from Boeing, Rolls-Royce and Inmarsat.

Rolls-Royce built the plane's engines, and Inmarsat, a British telecommunications company, provided satellite data used to plot the jet's final route.