Rebels hand over belongings
New Straits Times – 17 hours ago
REBEL leaders in east Ukraine said yesterday that a train carriage filled with the personal belongings of the victims Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 had been handed over to Dutch officials.
“The carriage has been sealed and is ready to be sent out of the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” said Sergei Kavtaradze, a member of the self-declared rebel authority’s security council.
The train carriage contains “personal belongings and luggage of the disaster”, he said in a statement, adding that it had been formally signed over to the Dutch on the ground in rebel territory on Saturday.
Meanwhile, a team of 30 Dutch forensic experts headed yesterday to the crash site, despite intensifying fighting in the area.
The team was able to travel following an agreement the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe made with the pro-Russian separatists.
The Dutch are in charge of victim identification and are leading the probe into what caused the crash.
A total of 298 people died in the July 17 disaster, 193 of them Dutch.
Separatists have been accused of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines 777 by mistake, but they have rejected the accusations.
Many of the bodies have been removed. A Dutch forensic team has been to the site already, but the forensic specialists investigating the crash have yet to go amid security concerns.
A truce has been called in the immediate area around the site by both Kiev forces
and the separatists, but combat has been raging just 60km away, with loud explosions heard at regular intervals in western and northern suburbs of rebel stronghold Donetsk. AFP'
and the separatists, but combat has been raging just 60km away, with loud explosions heard at regular intervals in western and northern suburbs of rebel stronghold Donetsk. AFP'
