Bodies from last week’s Malaysian Airlines plane accident are expected in The Netherlands on July 23, 2014.
A train carrying bodies from the shot-down Malaysia Airlines flight arrived in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv yesterday, July 22, 2014, as experts prepared to begin the long process of preparing the remains for transport to The Netherlands for identification.
The train arrived at 12:45 pm local time after a trip of almost 18 hours from rebel-held territory near the town of Torez. It pulled into the Balashovka Railway Station where the locomotive was taken to a building at the nearby Malysheva factory, a compound that produces military tanks and drilling equipment. Loaded inside refrigerated rail cars were 282 bodies, plus 87 body parts thought to belong to the 16 remaining victims, officials said.
The Washington Post reported that forensic experts from The Netherlands, France, Malaysia and Australia - all countries whose citizens died in the crash - were set to place the victims’ remains in stronger body bags in sealed coffins for transfer to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where the process of identifying the victims will start. Al Jazeera TV cited Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, as saying that the first bodies are expected in the country today, July 23, 2014. The Netherlands, from which the plane took off for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is leading the international investigation.
The delivery of the bodies offered some hope that an international investigation might clarify how the civilian airliner carrying 298 passengers and crew was shot down on July 17, 2014, by an antiaircraft missile over territory held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Experts however warned that the crash site has been compromised.
Earlier yesterday in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, some 300 km south-east of Kharkiv, the separatists handed over two black boxes from the downed plane to Malaysian experts. "The Malaysian team has taken custody of the black boxes, which appear to be in good condition. They will be held securely in Malaysian custody while the international investigation team is being formalised," Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, said in a statement.
