Dutch, Australians prepare teams for MH17 crash site
The train carrying the 280 bodies recovered from the downed Malaysian flight MH17 arrives at the Malyshev Plant in the government-held Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on July 22, 2014, from the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. PHOTO | SERGEY BOBOK
What you need to know:
- A truce has been called in the immediate area surrounding the site by both Kiev and pro-Russian separatists, but fierce combat was raging just 60 kilometres away, with loud explosions heard at regular intervals in a suburb of rebel stronghold Donetsk.
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Dutch and Australian forces were being readied Saturday for possible deployment to secure the rebel-held crash site of Malaysian flight MH17 in east Ukraine where many victims’ remains still lie nine days after the disaster claimed 298 lives.
A truce has been called in the immediate area surrounding the site by both Kiev and pro-Russian separatists, but fierce combat was raging just 60 kilometres away, with loud explosions heard at regular intervals in a suburb of rebel stronghold Donetsk.
Nine people were reported killed and 29 wounded in the last 24 hours in another insurgent holdout, Lugansk, while Ukraine’s military said it had lost four soldiers.
The European Union punished Russia — which it accuses of abetting the insurgency by arming the rebels who allegedly shot down MH17 — by slapping sanctions on its intelligence chiefs.
Moscow angrily blasted the move as “irresponsible” and warned it put at risk cooperation on security issues.
The violence in east Ukraine is raising questions over the viability of the Dutch-led international mission to the site where the airliner went down, particularly since rebels have signalled that they are only open to allowing a small group in.
Dutch authorities leading a probe into the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight on July 17 said 227 bodies have been flown to the Netherlands.
