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| Graffiti under a railway bridge commemorates the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, July 24, 2014. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says he is sending 40 unarmed military police to eastern Ukraine as part of a ramped-up effort to find the last victims of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 still at the crash site. Rutte told The Associated Press he is sending the police not as security for the site in rebel-held territory but as “extra hands and eyes to look for remaining remains and personal belongings” of victims. |
KHARKIV, Ukraine
(AP) -- Two more military aircraft carrying remains of victims from
the Malaysian plane disaster arrived in the Netherlands on Thursday,
while Australian and Dutch diplomats joined to promote a plan for a U.N.
team to secure the crash site which has been controlled by pro-Russian
rebels.
Human remains continue to be found a
full week after the plane went down - underlining concerns about the
halting and chaotic recovery effort at the sprawling site spread across
farmland in eastern Ukraine. Armed separatists control the area and have
hindered access by investigators.
All 298
people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 - most of them Dutch citizens -
were killed when the plane was shot down on July 17. U.S. officials say
the Boeing 777 was probably shot down by a missile from territory held
by pro-Russian rebels, likely by accident.
Australian
Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who says he fears some remains will never
be recovered unless security is tightened, has proposed a multinational
force mounted by countries such as Australia, the Netherlands and
Malaysia that lost citizens in the disaster. Abbott said Thursday he had
dispatched 50 police officers to London to be ready to join any
organization which may result.
Australia's
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was traveling with her Dutch counterpart
Frans Timmermans to Kiev to seek an agreement with the Ukraine
government to allow international police to secure the wreckage, Abbott
said.
Details including which countries would
contribute and whether officers would be armed and protected by
international troops were yet to be agreed, Abbott said.
International
experts found more remains still at the crash site both Wednesday and
Thursday, Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, told reporters in Donetsk on
Thursday. OSCE observers, sent to monitor the conflict, escorted a
delegation from Australia to examine the wreckage Thursday for the first
time. More Australian specialists are expected to join them Friday,
Bociurkiw said.
On Monday, the U.N. Security
Council unanimously approved a resolution proposed by Australia
demanding that rebels cooperate with an independent investigation and
allow all remaining bodies to be recovered.
The
first remains arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday and were met by
Dutch King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and hundreds of relatives. The
two planes Thursday brought a total of 74 more coffins back to the
Netherlands, said government spokesman Lodewijk Hekking.
Patricia
Zorko, head of the National Police Unit that includes the Dutch
national forensic team, said some 200 experts, including 80 from
overseas, were working in Hilversum at a military barracks on the
outskirts of the central city of Hilversum to identify the dead. Around
the world some 1,000 people are involved in the process, which also
includes gathering information from next of kin.
Staff
will "examine the bodies, describe the bodies, take dental information,
DNA and put all the information together in the computer and compare
this information with the information they gathered from the families in
the last days," police spokesman Ed Kraszewski said in a telephone
interview. "Then we have to see if there is a match."
There are three scientific methods of identifying bodies - dental records, finger prints and DNA.
After
the experts believe they have positively identified a body, they defend
their findings to an international panel. If both agree, the positive
identification will be sent to a Dutch prosecution office, which has the
power to release the body to the next of kin.
Zorko warned that the process of identification could be drawn out.
"Unfortunately this type of investigation often takes time," she said. "Count on weeks and maybe even months."
The
Dutch Safety Board said investigators in England successfully
downloaded data from Flight 17's Flight Data Recorder. It said "no
evidence or indications of manipulation of the recorder was found." It
did not release any details of the data.
Meanwhile,
police and traffic authorities appealed to the public not to stop on
the highway as a convoy of hearses passes by Thursday on its way from
Eindhoven Air Base to Hilversum.
On Wednesday,
the convoy of hearses passed through roads lined with thousands of
members of the public, who applauded, threw flowers or stood in silence
as the cars drove by.
The Dutch Foreign
Ministry said Thursday that the number of Dutch victims had risen by one
to 194, taking into account a woman with joint German and Dutch
nationalities who earlier had been listed as German.
Senior
U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible
for "creating the conditions" that led to the crash, but offered no
evidence of direct Russian government involvement.
The
officials said the plane was likely shot down by an SA-11
surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists in eastern
Ukraine. The U.S. officials cited intercepts, satellite photos and
social media postings by separatists, some of which have been
authenticated by U.S. experts.
Russia on
Thursday brushed off the accusations. Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly
Antonov said in a video statement that if the U.S. officials indeed had
the proof the plane shot down by a missile launched from the rebel-held
territory, "how come they have not been made public?"
Pro-Russian
rebels and Ukrainian government troops have been fighting for more than
three months, leaving at least 400 dead and displacing tens of
thousands.
The Obama administration on
Thursday accused Russia of firing artillery from its territory into
Ukraine to hit Ukrainian military sites and asserted that Moscow is
boosting its supply of weaponry to pro-Russian separatists.
"We
have new evidence that the Russians intend to deliver heavier and more
powerful multiple rocket launchers to separatist forces in Ukraine and
have evidence that Russia is firing artillery from within Russian to
attack Ukrainian military positions," State Department spokeswoman Marie
Harf told reporters. She said the evidence derived from "some
intelligence information" but declined to elaborate, saying it would
compromise sources and methods of intelligence collection.
In
Brussels, ambassadors from the 28 European Union nations agreed
Thursday to add more names to the list of Russians and pro-Russian
Ukrainians subject to EU-wide asset freezes and travel bans for
allegedly acting against Ukraine's territorial integrity. Seventy-two
people are already covered by the measures.
European
Union officials said the new names would be made public only Friday and
the fresh sanctions could for the first time result in Russian
companies being blacklisted from doing business in the EU.
On
Friday, the ambassadors will meet again to discuss the possible
imposition of further sweeping measures, targeting Russia's high-tech,
energy, defense and banking sectors, if Russia fails to cease its
alleged support for the rebellion.
White House
spokesman Eric Schultz said the White House expects that at least some
of the individuals targeted by the EU will overlap with those sanctioned
already by the U.S.
