Rebels hand over bodies, black boxes
Print Edition
A TRAIN carrying the remains of many of the 298 victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 arrived at a Ukrainian government base yesterday on the first leg of their final journey home to be reclaimed by their families.
Five refrigerated wagons containing 200 body bags arrived in the city of Kharkiv after pro-Russian rebels agreed to hand over the plane’s black boxes to Malaysian authorities and the bodies to the Netherlands, where many victims lived.
The train slowly rolled into the grounds of an arms industry plant, where the remains are due to be unloaded and flown to the Netherlands. A spokesowman for a Dutch team of forensic experts in Kharkiv said this was not expected before today.
The Malaysia Airlines plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down on July 17 near Donetsk, a stronghold of pro-Russian rebels.
The Netherlands said it would lead the investigation while Malaysia said it would look after the plane’s black boxes until a team was set up.
“Here they are, the black boxes,” rebel leader Aleksander Borodai told journalists at the headquarters of his self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as an armed rebel placed the boxes on a desk.
A small group of Malaysian air crash experts became the first international accident investigators to reach the site yesterday, escorted by a convoy of international monitors and heavily armed rebels. The Malaysians walked through the wheat fields by the wreckage, making notes and taking photographs.
At the United Nations, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution late on Monday demanding those responsible “be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability.”
It also demanded that armed groups allow “safe, secure, full and unrestricted access” to the crash site.
Russia’s Defence Ministry has challenged Western accusations that pro-Russian rebels were responsible for shooting down the airliner and said Ukrainian warplanes had flown close to it.
The ministry also rejected accusations that Russia had supplied the rebels with SA-11 Buk anti-aircraft missile systems — the weapon said by Kiev and the West to have downed the Malaysian airliner — “or any other weapons.”
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