Dutch MH17 repatriation mission in eastern Ukraine end

The Dutch MH17 repatriation mission in eastern Ukraine has finished and everything possible has been done, mission leader Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg declared on Thursday at the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice.

"The work of this mission is over," Aalbersberg told a press conference, adding, "All salvaged human remains, belongings and debris are now moving from Donetsk to Kharkiv. We cannot guarantee that everything has been found, but we have the certainty that we have done everything possible."

The team recovered human remains and personal belongings while 120 cubic meters of debris was salvaged. Next week, a military transport plane will bring seven coffins with human remains of victims of the flight disaster to the Netherlands.

From the Eindhoven Air Base, the coffins will be transported to Hilversum for identification. The team will return to the Netherlands as well.

Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17 last year on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 people on board died, of which 296 have been identified. Mission leader Aalbersberg hopes the last two victims will be identified with the new human remains.

Fighting and wintry weather conditions made it hard for the Netherlands to engage recovery work in the area around the disaster site for months, but on April 16 this year the repatriation mission resumed.

During the past two weeks, the 24-member team fully searched locations where fires in the plane had raged. A recovery operation in the area was staged, including in north Petropavlivka, where the security situation had previously prevented Dutch teams from access.

The repatriation team worked together with authorities in Kharkiv and surrounding villages, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Agreements have been made with the mayors of the villages around the disaster site. People who find remains can continue to drop these off at a number of fixed points.
  Source:Xinhua - globaltimes.cn
1/5/15
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