A plane carrying the bodies of 20 Malaysian victims of flight MH17,
which crashed in Ukraine in July, took off from Amsterdam for Kuala
Lumpur on Thursday, Dutch media reported.
There was no ceremony for the departure from Schiphol airport, local
news agency ANP reported, with the plane to land in Malaysia on Friday,
which has been declared a day of national mourning.
The plane will be met by Malaysia’s king, prime minister and other
dignitaries accompanied by a minute of silence at Kuala Lumpur’s main
international airport, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said last
week.
The remains will then be taken to the hometowns of the victims’ next-of-kin to be laid to rest.
The Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over rebel-held eastern
Ukraine on July 17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all
298 on board.
More than 220 coffins filled with remains have been taken to the Netherlands for identification.
Of those aboard, 193 were Dutch and 43 were Malaysians, including 15 crew members.
A total of 28 Malaysian victims have been identified in the Netherlands, which is in charge of the identification process.
Some victims may never be identified after the search for body parts
was called off at the crash site because of ongoing fighting between
Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists.
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The plane carrying the twenty bodies arrived at Kuala Lumpur airport on a specially chartered flight, as Mike Embley reports
Malaysians observed a
moment of silence following the arrival in Kuala Lumpur of the bodies
of 20 Malaysian victims of Flight MH17 that crashed in Ukraine in July.
A specially chartered plane took off from Amsterdam and landed around 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT).
National flags are flying at half-mast for the day of mourning.
Flight MH17 is believed to have been shot down by a missile fired by pro-Russian rebels. They deny the claim.
All 298 passengers and crew on board the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 died on 17 July. Family members observed a minute of silence following the arrival of the plane Co-pilot Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi and flight attendant Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh were mourned at a mosque A group of Malaysia Airlines staff werre on the tarmac at the Kuala Lumpur airport The coffins were draped in the national flag of Malaysia
From office workers to train drivers, many among the nation of 30
million observed a minute’s silence as white hearses drove the remains
from the airport to private funerals in various provinces.
The country’s public transportation, including the national rail
system and Kuala Lumpur’s monorail, paused during the minute of silence.
Prime Minister Najib Razak, who turned his Twitter and Facebook pages black, wrote a condolence message that was widely shared. At the scene: Jonathan Head, BBC News, Kuala Lumpur
This was a full state occasion. The flag-draped coffins were solemnly
shouldered by soldiers clad in white and gold, and the procession of
hearses driven slowly past the King and the Prime Minister.
It is unusual for civilian victims of an air accident to be accorded
this kind of honour; but then this has been an extraordinary, unlucky
year for Malaysia’s aviation industry.
Very little has been said in the build-up to this Day of Mourning about that other flight, MH370.
It must be assumed that the 239 people on board that Malaysian
Airlines plane are dead, but with no wreckage, no bodies, and no
explanation of what happened, it has been impossible to hold the kind of
ceremony held today.
As we watched the family of flight attendant Hamfazlin Sham bury her
in a cemetery outside Kuala Lumpur, there was a palpable sense of
relief, that at last it was over.
Her sisters were pleased with the large turnout, and the attention
they were getting from the government and local politicians. It has
taken Dutch forensic experts a month to identify these first 20 of the
43 Malaysians on board. “But at least we had a body to bury”, said one
sister.
There has been no such finality for the families of those on board flight MH370.
“Last month, 43 Malaysian lives were taken over eastern Ukraine.
Today we mourn the loss of our people. Today, we begin to bring them
home.”
“Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families and friends of
those who lost their lives. Today we stand with you, united as one.”
Transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said in a statement that the
government will “redouble” efforts to bring home the remaining victims.
Malaysia Airlines is organising a public prayer session and a spokesman also expressed the company’s condolences.
Earlier on Thursday, a contingent of Malaysian soldiers met the plane to escort the coffins to the hearses.
All the coffins were draped in the national flag. Three of the 20 bodies have been cremated in the Netherlands. Investigation hampered
The victims’ bodies have been given to their families and relatives to be laid to rest.
This is the first time Malaysia is holding a national day of mourning for civilian victims.
The honour has traditionally been accorded only to the royal family and heads of government.
Of the 43 Malaysian victims, 28 have been identified in the
Netherlands so far, which is leading an international investigation into
the crash in eastern Ukraine.
More than 200 coffins with remains of the victims have so far been taken to the Netherlands.
But the inquiry is being hampered by continuing fighting between
Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian rebels near the crash site. Debris from MH17 was scattered across 35 sq km (13 sq miles) of territory held by pro-Russian rebels
Suasana sepi menyelubungi galeri khas 'Reflection MH17' di Lapangan
Terbang Antarabangsa Schiphol di Amsterdam semalam walaupun ramai
pelancong asing dan rakyat tempatan memenuhi ruang itu bagi memberi
penghormatan sempena genap sebulan tragedi pesawat Malaysia Airlines
(MAS) penerbangan MH17 semalam.
Hujan
renyai di sekitar Amsterdam sejak awal pagi seolah-olah turut menangisi
pemergian kesemua 298 penumpang dan anak kapal yang terkorban dalam
nahas itu pada 17 Julai lepas, ketika dalam perjalanan dari Amsterdam ke
Kuala Lumpur.
Tinjauan di galeri itu mendapati ada pelawat yang meletakkan kuntuman
bunga, surat, mesej, gambar, lilin, bendera dan pelbagai barangan
sebagai tanda takziah dan kenangan buat mangsa.
Ada yang bertafakur, ada yang memeluk anggota keluarga sambil menangis
ketika mendekati sudut yang memaparkan gambar dan maklumat mengenai
semua penumpang dan anak kapal MH17.
Kesan titisan air mata juga menjadi sebahagian daripada kandungan di
dalam buku takziah di galeri itu, yang menurut petugas galeri berkenaan
yang enggan dikenali, berpuluh-puluh buku takziah disediakan di ruang
itu sejak bulan lepas.
Seorang pelancong kanak-kanak dari Itali yang hanya mahu dikenali
sebagai Leonardo, 10, berkata beliau menulis "Kami akan sentiasa bersama
anda" di dalam buku takziah itu.
Seorang gadis tempatan yang hanya mahu dikenali sebagai Maaike, 20,
percaya semua mangsa nahas itu pasti dikenangi selama-lamanya
terutamanya dalam kalangan rakyat Belanda.
Seorang petugas di lapangan terbang itu pula berkata, hatinya sentiasa
sedih dan sayu setiap kali melalui galeri itu dan berharap roh semua
mangsa tenang.
Para pengunjung galeri itu tidak ketinggalan merakamkan takziah khusus buat juruterbang dan anak kapal MAS yang terkorban.
Penjaga parkir, Bashah dari Surinam berkata:"Saya amat sedih dengan
tragedi ini, dan saya bersimpati dengan negara anda yang terpaksa
berdepan dengan tragedi dua pesawat."
Selain pesawat MH17 yang ditembak jatuh pihak tidak bertanggungjawab di
Donestk, timur Ukraine bulan lepas, Malaysia masih lagi kesedihan
dengan kehilangan penerbangan MH370 yang membawa 239 penumpang dan anak
kapal ketika dalam perjalanan dari Kuala Lumpur ke Beijing pada 8 Mac
lepas.
Gerakan mencari MH370, yang membabitkan pelbagai negara, bermula di
Laut China Selatan sebelum diperluas ke Selat Melaka dan di selatan
Lautan Hindi. – Bernama, 18 Ogos, 2014.
17 August 2014 Last updated at 01:21 Debris from MH17 was scattered across 35 sq km (13 sq miles) of rebel-held territory
A month after the MH17 air disaster in eastern Ukraine the investigation still has a very long way to go, the BBC’s Anna Holligan reports from The Hague.
“If you told me a month ago that I’d be happy my daughter’s body was
in one piece and not 17 pieces, I’d have thought you were crazy… now of
course I am just grateful that she is home.”
Hans de Borst’s only child, Elsemiek, was identified on 8 August. She
was 17 years old. Elsemiek is one of 127 victims identified so far by
international teams of forensic investigators and pathologists working
at a military base in Hilversum.
“They used her teeth and a ring,” Elsemiek’s father tells us. “I told
the Family Detectives about the ring. She didn’t wear much jewellery
but always this ring. It had the letters ‘Els’.”
The dedicated “Family Detectives” have been assigned to act as a go-between. They provide a buffer between the clinical forensic investigation process and the personal grief of the relatives.
Two-thirds of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines
Flight MH17 were from the Netherlands. That is why the Dutch have taken
the lead in identifying the bodies, trying to establish what caused the
crash and running the criminal investigation. Hans declined to see Elsemiek’s body – he says “I want to remember the way she was before” A shrine for a family of six from Neerkant who died in the MH17 crash
Western governments suspect that the jet, with 298 people on board, was hit by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatists. The rebels and Russia blamed the Ukrainian military for the crash.
Like most of the families, Hans de Borst gave DNA samples a week after the crash. He was also offered the chance to see his daughter’s body in the makeshift morgue. He declined:
“They told me she is in one piece. So in that way maybe I am lucky.
But she is damaged of course. I don’t want to see that. I want to
remember the way she was before… They took photographs, in case I change
my mind in 10 years time.”
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Sometimes I wish I was on that plane too because what’s my purpose in life now?”
End Quote Hans de Borst Father of MH17 victim Who did it?
This is the biggest criminal investigation ever conducted in the Netherlands.
“Never before have we had a murder case with so many victims,” said
Wim de Bruin from the Dutch prosecution service, fielding press inquiries from all over the world. Passengers from 10 different countries were on board Flight MH17.
Ten Dutch prosecutors and 200 police officers are involved in gathering and preparing the evidence for a criminal trial.
There are three main questions about the eventual MH17 trial: Where
will it be conducted? What crimes will the accused be charged with? How
long before we see the suspects in court?
The Dutch prosecutors are still in the initial stages of the criminal
investigation, but they have already dismissed speculation that the
trial could be held at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The ICC only takes cases if countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute. The Dutch are willing and able.
Under the current plan, the suspects would be extradited to face
trial at the District Court in The Hague. But extradition would require
the host country’s co-operation, once the suspects are identified.
Wim de Bruin says they are considering “several grounds and possibilities” concerning the charges.
“Of course murder, but we also have the crime of ‘wrecking an airplane’ and we could use international criminal law – that would mean possible charges of war crimes, torture and genocide.” The number of missing bodies is still unknown Investigators examine the wreckage near Grabovo, Ukraine Lockerbie lessons
It is impossible, they say, to give a time frame. The only reference
they have is Lockerbie. Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland in
1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 others on the ground. In 2001, a
Libyan intelligence officer was jailed for the bombing.
Yet questions remain about the bomb plot – not only the perpetrators
but also the motives. In 2003 Col Muammar Gaddafi – later killed in the
Arab Spring – accepted responsibility and paid compensation to the
victims’ families.
“With Lockerbie it took three years for the investigation and then
another seven for the trial,” Mr De Bruin recalls. “And that was with a
plane that crashed in a peaceful place. With MH17 the case is more complicated.”
The passengers were catapulted into a conflict zone. The evidence is
scattered over a 35 sq km (13 sq mile) radius, across sunflower fields
and farmland. Tributes in a Hilversum church: Three local families and a teenage boy died
And there are concerns about what happened to the debris in the
initial days after the crash. Was vital evidence lost or tampered with?
Two Dutch prosecutors flew to Kiev but have been unable to access the site in eastern Ukraine.
Some say gaining control of the crash site around Grabove has become a
point of honour for the Ukrainian government forces and the pro-Russian
separatists fighting them, making visits to the area risky.
On 6 August the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, announced that the
Dutch forensic investigators and their sniffer dogs were pulling out
until the situation calmed down.
More than 220 coffins have been returned to the Netherlands with an
unknown number of passengers inside. They don’t know how many bodies are
still missing, and not all of the remains have been recovered. What caused the crash?
A team of 25 air crash investigators is trying to establish what destroyed the plane.
Experts from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, the UK, Australia, Malaysia
and the United States are working at the rather nondescript Dutch Safety
Board headquarters in The Hague.
Normally with any aviation investigation they would start at the
crash site, but counter-terrorism experts feared the presence of
aviation investigators might jeopardise the forensic team’s efforts to
recover the bodies, so they have been forced to rely on alternative
sources of evidence.
Wim van der Wegen from the Dutch Safety Board says they already have
enough to prepare a preliminary report. “We are using the voice
recorder, the black box flight data recorder, satellite images,
information from air traffic control and photos taken by people who were
able to visit crash site.”
They expect to publish the preliminary report within two weeks. It will not attribute blame or liability.
From the moment the first remains were repatriated, the Dutch
authorities have strived to restore the honour and dignity that was
stolen from the families.
Bringing the perpetrators to justice would help to heal a wound that has cut deep into Dutch society.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28808832
A minute’s silence was observed by fans at St James’s Park today during tributes to two Newcastle United fans who died on doomed Flight MH17. Family members
of John Alder, 63, and Liam Sweeney, 28, were greeted with huge
applause as they laid flowers in the centre circle of the stadium.
They were joined by Fabricio Coloccini, captain of Newcastle, and Vincent Kompany, captain of Manchester City, as well as Sunderland legend Jimmy Montgomery.
The silence was then perfectly observed by both sets of fans as they remembered the pair who had been travelling to New Zealand to watch their team play .
In his programme notes, Newcastle manager Alan Pardew described them as two of the club’s most loyal fans and said they would ensure their memory would live on.
He also paid tribute to Newcastle University students Aidan Brunger, 22, and Neil Dalton, 23, who were killed in Borneo.
“We lost two of our most loyal supporters in John Alder and Liam
Sweeney last month, and I know everyone will join myself and all in our dressing room
in endorsing the efforts the club have made and are continuing to make
to ensure their memories will live on,” he said. “They will not be
forgotten by any of us.
“The same goes for Newcastle University students Aidan Brunger and
Neil Dalton, who lost their lives in a horrible incident in Borneo.
“Aidan spent some time at our training ground
last season and a number of staff got to know him, so it was especially
difficult news to digest. Our condolences go to the families of all
four lost souls.”
The students were were followed by four men in a car after a bar row and knifed in the street .
Article source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/malaysia-airlines-mh17-plane-crash-4067084
Investigators began searching the wreckage of Malaysian Air Flight
MH17 after two weeks of delays, finding body parts and personal
belongings of the victims as the pro-Russian revolt in eastern Ukraine
raged on around them.
Dozens of forensics experts, mainly Dutch and Australian, followed
scouts along a four-hour journey from the regional capital Donetsk to
the chicken farm near the village of Grabovo where the bulk of the
fuselage came down on July 17, according to Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg,
head of the recovery mission.
“A number of human remains were found,” Aalbersberg said in an
e-mailed statement. Those will be put in refrigerated rail cars and sent
to the evacuation center in Kharkiv, from where they’ll be flown to
Amsterdam, where the flight originated.
The U.S. and Ukraine
say the Boeing Co. 777 was most likely brought down by a missile fired
by pro-Russian insurgents amid months of fighting that has claimed more
than 1,000 lives. Both Russia and the rebels blame Ukrainian forces.
Aalbersberg the recovery effort will include fours teams of 20 experts
each over the weekend, with a fifth team joining in a few days, when
divers and sniffer dogs may be deployed, Aalbersberg said. The mission
will take weeks to complete.
Photographer: Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images
A piece of the fuselage at the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), some 80km east of Donetsk, on July 25, 2014. Close
A piece of the fuselage at the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near… Read More
Open Photographer: Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images
A piece of the fuselage at the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines
Flight MH17 near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), some 80km east of
Donetsk, on July 25, 2014.
Former Soviet states from Ukraine to the Baltics said they were menaced by jets from neighboring Russia yesterday as fighting continued in the mainly Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Jets Scramble
NATO jets were scrambled from a Lithuanian air base at about 9 a.m.
today to “identify” Russian aircraft “flying without a pre-agreed
schedule” in neutral waters near Estonia, according to a spokeswoman for
Lithuania’s Defense Ministry, Viktorija Cieminyte. The Defense Ministry
in Kiev said it downed a Russian drone inside Ukraine, one of several aircraft to violate the country’s airspace in the past two days.
“During the last 24 hours, terrorists fired on the checkpoints and
positions of Ukrainian forces in a number of cities and villages,”
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, told reporters
in Kiev yesterday. “Part of the shelling came from Russian territory.”
Russia is deploying Grad rocket systems and continues to build up
artillery positions near the border, according to Lysenko. The Defense
Ministry in Moscow declined to comment on any alleged violations of
airspace.
The Interfax news service cited unidentified officials as saying
Russia plans to call up military reservists for training exercies that
will last at least through October. Scheduled maneuvers that began near
Ukraine yesterday included about 30 helicopters and 300 pilots,
according the Zvezda army website.
Obama, Putin
Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin
spoke by phone about the deepening crisis yesterday, during which Obama
“reiterated his deep concerns about Russia’s increased support for the
separatists,” the White House said in a statement.
Putin said the sanctions imposed against Russia as a result of the
crisis in Ukraine have done “serious damage” to international relations,
according to the Kremlin. Both sides stressed the importance of
establishing an “immediate, sustainable cease-fire” to begin peace
talks, the Kremlin said.
The leaders spoke after an assault by 150 rebels backed by three
tanks near the city of Shakhtarsk left 10 government troops dead and 13
wounded, according to Ukrainian officials.
More Deaths
In the city of Luhansk, one of the main population centers of the
rebel-held areas, five civilians were killed and nine wounded in the
past 24 hours, according to the local council. The city of more than
400,000 people is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe because it
has no electricity, water supply or mobile phone coverage, it said on its website.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who was elected after his Russian-backed predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych,
was deposed after months of protests in February, reiterated in a
television interview that Ukraine won’t negotiate over territory,
including Crimea, which Russian annexed in March.
Putin, speaking at the opening of a monument to the soldiers of World
War I in Moscow, said earlier yesterday that tragedies worldwide are
caused by the ambitions of leaders and called for peace.
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the conflict. The
U.S. and its European Union allies, though, blame Putin for failing to
rein in the insurgency and stop the war.
‘Substantial Problems’
The EU yesterday blacklisted state-run Russian banks OAO Sberbank,
VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Vnesheconombank and Rosselkhozbank, barring them
from selling shares
or bonds in Europe as punishment for Putin’s policies in Ukraine. That’s
part of the 28-nation bloc’s deepest sanctions yet, announced July 29,
that includes restrictions on the exports of equipment for Russia’s oil
industry and curbs on arm sales.
While the measures create “substantial problems” for Russian banks,
they are “unlikely to significantly alter,” the Kremlin’s policy in
Ukraine, Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at Eurasia Group in London, said by e-mail.
“The likelihood of continued Russian actions in support of the
separatists make additional level 3 sanctions probable this fall,”
Rahman said.
Group of Seven countries will vote against approving new World Bank
projects in Russia as punishment over Ukraine, according to three
government officials with knowledge of the agreement. The action, which
puts at least $1.5 billion of possible projects at risk, was decided by
deputy finance ministers from the G-7 during a conference call last
week, according to two of the officials, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because the call wasn’t public.
The World Bank will have trouble getting approval for projects in the
face of opposition from the G-7, which has more than 40 percent of
votes on the bank’s board, said Scott Morris, a former deputy assistant
secretary for development finance and debt at the U.S. Treasury Department.
“It will be very difficult for management to contemplate proceeding
with anything that requires board approval,” said Morris, a senior
associate at the Center for Global Development, an aid research group in Washington.
To contact the reporters on this story: Volodymyr Verbyany in Kiev at
vverbyany1@bloomberg.net; Daria Marchak in Kiev at
dmarchak@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net Brad Cook
Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-01/mh17-remains-found-as-experts-walk-ukraine-tightrope.html
1 August 2014 Last updated at 17:38 ET Australian experts examine the crash site
A team of 70 Dutch and Australian forensic experts has found human remains at the site of the flight MH17 crash in east Ukraine.
They made their discovery on their first full day of searching at the
site, an area of some 35 sq km (13.5 sq miles) inside the conflict
zone.
Local search parties found 227 of the 298 victims earlier and they were flown to the Netherlands for identification.
Presidents Obama and Putin discussed the crisis by telephone on Friday.
The US president told his Russian counterpart that while he was “deeply concerned” over his continuing support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, he hoped a diplomatic solution was still possible. There are innumerable checkpoints manned by both sides in the east of Ukraine – adding to the woes of civilians
“I think that we have done everything that we can to support the
Ukrainian government and to deter Russia from moving further into
Ukraine,” President Obama said afterwards.
“But short of going to war there are going to be some constraints in
terms of what we can do if President Putin and Russia are ignoring what
should be their long term interests.”
Both President Obama and President Putin agreed that continuing
fighting in Ukraine was not in the interests of either country, the
Kremlin said.
The clashes between government troops and pro-Russian separatist
rebels had previously prevented the investigators reaching the area. Ten
Ukrainian soldiers were killed near the crash site on Thursday.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing
777 airliner came down on 17 July with the loss of all 298 passengers
and crew, while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The stench of death is still there”
End Quote Michael Bociurkiw OSCE spokesman at crash site
After Ukraine’s military declared a unilateral
one-day suspension of operations against the rebels in Donetsk region
on Thursday, an exploratory visit was made by the forensic experts,
followed by the full deployment on Friday.
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Tom Burridge in Kiev: “Taking control of Donetsk from rebels will be a difficult task”
It is now unclear whether Ukraine’s army or separatist forces
control the site, as fighting continues nearby, the BBC’s Tom Burridge
reports from Kharkiv. The Ukrainian army is on the offensive in eastern Ukraine The
fighting between government troops and pro-Russian separatist rebels
had previously prevented the investigators reaching the MH17 crash site Artillery fire
The head of the search mission, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, announced
that it had completed its first day of work and had recovered human
remains which would be sent to the Netherlands.
He said the mission was moving to a new base in the Donetsk town of Soledar.
The investigators had travelled in 16 vehicles to the crash site,
outside the village of Grabove, along with monitors from the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Artillery fire could be heard periodically somewhere in the distance during the work on Friday, AP news agency reports. Australian and Dutch experts examine plane wreckage at the site An investigator examines debris from flight MH17 in east Ukraine BBC Defence correspondent Jonathan Beale in eastern Ukraine
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The BBC’s Jonathan Beale: “It’s mostly the poor, the helpless and the old that have been left behind”
The fighting is getting more intense around the pro-Russian separatist stronghold of Donetsk.
It is becoming harder to leave and enter the city, but life inside continues as normally as it possibly can.
In satellite towns around Donetsk, though, it is a different story.
There you can see smoke rising across the horizon, often the aftermath of heavy bombardment by rockets and artillery.
It’s a sign that Ukrainian forces are stepping up their efforts to take the rebel-held areas.
We went to Shakhtarsk, 65km (40 miles) east of Donetsk.
We watched civilians fleeing their homes. They were shell-shocked and war weary.
The town itself was littered with glass, broken bricks and torn-up trees. Few had stayed behind.
But nervous rebels were still manning checkpoints and patrolling the town. They are not giving up.
The ongoing conflict is forcing the team of international monitors,
as well as Dutch and Australian experts, to take a long detour to the
crash site of MH17.
Talks between a rebel delegation and officials from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE are to resume next week in Belarus, the OSCE said in a statement.
In a separate development, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has
said that long-awaited parliamentary elections will take place in the
autumn.
“[Then] there will be a new parliament that will start on reforms,” the president said in a televised interview.
More than 1,500 people are believed to have been killed in the
conflict which erupted in east Ukraine in April, after separatists
declared independence from the new government in Kiev.
Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in March, has been
accused of arming the rebels and has been targeted by US and EU
sanctions.
Article source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28599315
Family members observed a minute of silence following the arrival of the plane
Co-pilot Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi and flight attendant Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh were mourned at a mosque
A group of Malaysia Airlines staff werre on the tarmac at the Kuala Lumpur airport
The coffins were draped in the national flag of Malaysia
Debris from MH17 was scattered across 35 sq km (13 sq miles) of territory held by pro-Russian rebels
Debris from MH17 was scattered across 35 sq km (13 sq miles) of rebel-held territory
Hans declined to see Elsemiek’s body – he says “I want to remember the way she was before”
A shrine for a family of six from Neerkant who died in the MH17 crash
The number of missing bodies is still unknown
Investigators examine the wreckage near Grabovo, Ukraine
Tributes in a Hilversum church: Three local families and a teenage boy died
Australian experts examine the crash site
There are innumerable checkpoints manned by both sides in the east of Ukraine – adding to the woes of civilians
The Ukrainian army is on the offensive in eastern Ukraine 
The
fighting between government troops and pro-Russian separatist rebels
had previously prevented the investigators reaching the MH17 crash site
Australian and Dutch experts examine plane wreckage at the site
An investigator examines debris from flight MH17 in east Ukraine
