You are on page 1of 3

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: Dutch repatriation ceremony

honours more victims - World


The remains of 74 more people who died when Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down in
eastern Ukraine last week returned to the Netherlands on Friday.
In the third solemn ceremony in as many days, two military transport planes carried the bodies
from Ukraine to Eindhoven airfield. From there, the bodies will travel to a Dutch military base
where a forensic team will attempt to identify them.
The Boeing 777 went down July 17 as it headed to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, killing all
298 people on board. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say it was shot down, likely by mistake, by a
missile fired from rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists are fighting
Ukrainian government forces.
Of the dead, 194 were Dutch citizens and 37 were Australian citizens or residents. Both countries'
governments have expressed determination to see the dead brought home and the crash
investigated.
As the bodies returned Friday, the Dutch Safety Board announced it expects to publish the "initial
factual findings" of its investigation into the downing of Flight MH17 by as early as the end of next
week.
Spokeswoman Sara Vernooij says the initial findings will outline how the investigation will proceed,
in terms of "what can we rule out? What are we going to focus on?"
Dutch Safety Board investigators are also set to visit the wreckage site in eastern Ukraine in the
coming days.
Their aim is "verification of information already gathered from other sources, to search for possible
new information and possibly collect relevant material for the investigation such as certain pieces of
wreckage," the board said in a written statement.
Meanwhile, at the crash site near Donetsk, a small group of Dutch and Australian investigators
walked the sprawling, unsecured site where the Boeing 777 went down as their governments
prepared police detachments that will try to protect the crash area and help bring the last of the
victims home.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his country was ready to send 40 unarmed military police to
rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to help investigators, while Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott
has said his government is close to a deal to send police. Australia has 90 federal police officers
standing by in Europe.
"This will be a police-led humanitarian mission," Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in
Kharkiv, where more remains were placed on flights to the Netherlands on Friday for identification
and investigation. "And there will be body identification experts, forensic experts. And of course
we will ensure that they are safe, that they will have protection."
No plan for a large-scale deployment of experts and security personnel had been announced Friday,
however, and the site remained largely unsecured. Four Australian and three Dutch investigators
walked among the widely-scattered plane parts past two grazing cows near the village of Hrabove on
a warm summer day. The investigators were accompanied by observers from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been very vocal in his outrage over Ukrainian rebels'
handling of the Malaysian jet crash site. He wants to send an international force immediately to
secure the site. (Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army claimed that soldiers came under artillery fire from the Russian side
of the border overnight and were attacked by rebels in several other places in the restive east.
Ukrainian forces are trying to close in on the rebels, cutting them off from the border with Russia
which Kyiv believes is the source of arms and reinforcement. Moscow has vehemently denied a role
in the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and government troops which has left more than 400
people dead and displaced tens of thousands.
In a statement on Friday, the headquarters of the government's military operation in the east listed
at least seven locations where rebels attacked Ukrainian troops. They also claimed that attacks on
two locations including a border crossing were supported by artillery fire from Russia.
Russia said Ukrainian also fired into its territory. Around 40 mortar shells fired by Ukrainian forces
fell in Russia's Rostov province near the Ukrainian border, a Russian official told the state Ria
Novosti news agency.
Late on Thursday, Ukrainian troops entered the town of Lysychansk, which has been in rebel hands
for several months, the military press office said. Rebels on Friday morning admitted in comments
carried by Interfax that they had to flee the town which is 70 kilometres northwest of the regional
capital Luhansk.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-australia-readies-90-police-to-guard-cras
h-site-1.2717672

You might also like