MH17 victims begin long journey home

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 23 Juli 2014 | 19.12

23 July 2014 Last updated at 12:56
From clockwise top, a coffin is carried to a military plane at Kharkiv airport bound for Holland, flowers are left at the airport following a ceremony for the victims of MH17, the flight carrying the bodies takes off, Ukrainian citizens hold up a sign which reads "Kharkiv is sympathizing"

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Richard Galpin reports from Kharkiv airport as some of the victims' "long journey home" begins

The first planes carrying bodies from flight MH17 have left Ukraine for the Netherlands, which is holding a day of mourning for the 298 victims.

Experts there will begin to identify the dead, most of whom were Dutch.

Pro-Russian rebels have been widely accused of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines plane on 17 July.

UK government sources say intelligence shows rebels deliberately tampered with evidence, moving bodies and placing parts from other planes in the debris.

Although 200 bodies have so far been accounted for, experts believe there could be more left at the crash site.

On Wednesday morning, 40 coffins were slowly loaded on to two military planes at Kharkiv airport.

The BBC's Daniel Sandford in Kharkiv says ambassadors, officials and soldiers gathered to see off the planes.

Australian government envoy Angus Houston said the ceremony was intended to give the victims the "respect and dignity they deserve" after a "tragedy of unspeakable proportions".

Dutch government representative Hans Docter said the victims had begun their "long journey" home.

The first flight is due to arrive in Eindhoven at 16:00 local time (14:00 GMT) and will be met by members of the Dutch royal family and Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Churches around the Netherlands will ring their bells for five minutes before the planes land.

Floral tributes left to victims

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A day of mourning is being held in the Netherlands, Anna Holligan reports

The bodies are then due to be taken to the Korporaal van Oudheusden barracks south of Hilversum for identification.

Mr Rutte said that process could take months.

In a separate process, the "black box" flight-data recorders from MH17 have arrived in the UK, where they will be examined at the headquarters of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Farnborough.

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Earlier in Washington, officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence presented evidence they had gathered on the involvement of the rebels.

"It's a solid case that it's an SA-11 [missile] that was fired from eastern Ukraine under conditions the Russians helped create," said the officials, who requested that their names not be reported.

They said the "most plausible explanation" for the shooting down of the plane was that rebels mistook it for another aircraft.

The evidence they presented included:

  • Satellite images of a facility allegedly used to train rebels near the Russian city of Rostov, which were later tweeted by Geoffrey Pyatt, US ambassador to Ukraine
  • Other images purportedly showing a surface-to-air missile launcher in the area
  • Analysis of voice recordings of pro-Russian rebels apparently admitting bringing the airliner down
  • Photos and messages from social-media sites pointing to rebel involvement

Separately, a rebel militiaman told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had been ordered to the crash site minutes after the plane had gone down.

He said his commanders had told him: "We've just shot down one of the Kiev fascists' planes."

The militiaman said: "We thought we were looking for baled-out Ukrainian pilots but instead we found dead civilians."

Train with MH17 bodies arrives in Kharkiv (22 July)

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The train carrying bodies from the MH17 crash site arrived in Kharkiv on Tuesday

The US and other nations have accused rebels of blocking access to the crash site, putting valuable evidence at risk.

In Australia, former American President Bill Clinton paid tribute to six HIV/Aids campaigners who were on board MH17.

He said their lives had been "overpowering in their contribution to a shared future".

Meanwhile, fighting between Ukrainian government forces and rebels around the rebel stronghold of Donetsk has reportedly left 16 people dead.

A statement from overall military commander Igor Strelkov posted on a rebel website said he had withdrawn his fighters from the outskirts of Donetsk.

He said they had pulled back and were prepared to defend their positions.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine erupted in April and is believed to have claimed more than 1,000 lives.


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