Kharkiv, Ukraine, July 22, 2014
The remains of victims were taken by train to the government-held Ukrainian city of Kharkiv five days after the jet was brought down, after rebels controlling the crash site finally released them and the plane's black boxes under intense international pressure.
But that was only the first leg of the long journey home for many of the 298 crash victims, with the bodies to be flown on Wednesday first to the Netherlands, which had 193 citizens aboard the doomed flight and is taking the lead in investigating the disaster.
Dutch experts said they were only sure 200 bodies had been delivered so far -- less than what the pro-Russian rebels had promised. International monitors also said some remains were left decomposing under the sweltering summer heat in the vast crash site in rebel-held east Ukraine.
The Netherlands has declared a national day of mourning on Wednesday, with Dutch royals and Prime Minister Mark Rutte due at the airport for the arrival of the bodies.
It will also be the start of a complex investigation and Rutte warned that the identification of the bodies alone could take months.
A truce has been declared by rival sides around the crash impact site, but just beyond, fighting raged on Tuesday as government troops pushed on with an offensive to wrest control of east Ukraine's industrial heartland from the pro-Moscow separatists.
Around 1,000 people have been killed in the 15-week conflict, almost a third of those victims of the plane crash that had brought Ukraine's war to the doorstep of countries as far away as Australia and Indonesia.
In Brussels, European foreign ministers agreed to speed up wider embargoes against Moscow, accused of arming the rebels who allegedly shot down MH17, with a new list of sanctions targets, including Russian individuals and entities, expected to be announced on Thursday.
After intense international focus on what world leaders denounced as a "shambolic" situation at the crash site, rebels handed over two black boxes, which record cockpit activity and flight data, to Malaysian officials.
The rebels followed Kiev in announcing a ceasefire around the impact site in a move that should help international investigators examine the sprawling forensic minefield littered with poignant fragments from hundreds of destroyed lives.
"There were human remains that had not been picked up," said Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for European security body OSCE's mission to Ukraine after visiting the impact site.
"We did observe changes at the site. The fuselage has been moved. It appears that the cone section is split in two and it appears that the tail fin has been moved," he said.
Elsewhere in Ukraine's east, fighting was continuing with local authorities in the besieged cities of Donetsk and Lugansk reporting 10 civilians killed in 24 hours and Ukraine's military saying 13 soldiers had died.
As artillery fire rang out in Donetsk, a fighter, who declined to be named said: "They're firing on civilians! These are Ukrainians! They have become like wild animals."
Kiev reported on Tuesday that it had retaken Severodonetsk -- an industrial city of about 100,000 inhabitants around 120 kilometres from rebel stronghold Donetsk.
In a sign tensions are still running high a senior security official in Kiev claimed that Russia had massed over 40,000 soldiers along its border over the past week.
- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/mh17/malaysia-quietly-worked-back-channels-to-secure-bodies-black-boxes/article1-1243374.aspx#sthash.kHsy50f3.dpuf
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