Amsterdam, the Netherlands: A Dutch-led team of 70 experts has retrieved more remains and personal belongings of passengers from the MH17 crash site.
Later today, the newly found remains will be put into refrigerated train cars and taken to Kharkiv, the location of the air lift to the Netherlands.
There, a team of Dutch, Australian and Malaysian disaster victims identification specialists will stand ready to transfer the remains and personal belongings back to the Netherlands, following an initial forensic scan.
Head of the recovery mission Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the team on the ground had upon securing the remains, taken them in an ambulance away from the site and headed to a new operations base in Soledar, a town in Ukraine situated northwest of the location where the Malaysia Airlines aircraft crashed two weeks ago.
“We are glad that we can ensure these remains will be transported to the Netherlands now. We hope this will be of some comfort to the relatives. Our people are relieved to finally have been able to get to work on the site,” he said in a statement.
The team had under the leadership of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, left Donetsk at 7.20am yesterday, via a new northern route to reach the site. They reached the site some four hours later.
The remains and a number of personal belongings were found near a chicken farm located in the small village of Grabovo, near Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
The team of 30 experts had earlier combed the area for two hours involving a 5×5-metre area.
“The remains were all recovered and packed separately … they will be stored in a refrigerated carriage.
“The many personal belongings recovered too have all been packed separately, collected in large bags and taken away by the team,” Aalbersberg said.
He added that the location where of the discovery was close to where the fuselage of the plane came to rest.
He said the team comprising police officers and experts, had combed through the area and marked important finds while observing protocols, including by wearing protective clothing and gloves.
The other police officers, meanwhile he said performed tasks like moving recovered material and putting up fences.
“In principle, everything found at the disaster site is first photographed, then put into bags by the recovery workers.
“All bags are labelled and taken away on stretchers,” he said of the operations.
He said the new base in Soledar, nearly 90 km north-west of the crash site, allowed easier access to the crash site.
Aalbersberg said the team would today resume operations with four teams of 20 experts each.
“We will be at full strength on Sunday or Monday with five teams … In the days ahead we may be able to deploy divers and specially trained dogs.
“Of course, returning to the crash site depends on the outcome of negotiations with the OSCE and the security situation,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Dutch government announced that it had identified the second victim of the MH17 air disaster.
The remains were matched to a Dutch citizen and the relatives and mayor of the town in which the victim was resident, had been informed.
The first body was identified on July 26, three days after the first batch arrived at the military base in Hilversum.
-NST
