KUALA LUMPUR, July 21 – Representatives of Ukraine State Commission for the investigation of the downed Malaysian Airline flight MH17 are unaware of the location of the plane’s black boxes, according to the statement issued by Ukraine Crisis Media Centre on Sunday.
The statement said, it was suspected, however, that the black boxes might be in the possession of the separatists. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in the statement said 200 employees of the country’s State Emergency Service were participating in the search operation, along with 800 volunteers.
However, they are working under the constant watch of the armed separatists, said Groysman, who head the country’s State Commission for the Investigation on the circumstances of the MH17 incident.
“As of today (Sunday) we managed to load 192 bodies and eight body parts of innocent victims of the MH17 flight onto a special train. The train is in Torez, and it is sealed,” he said. Flight MH17, a Boeing 777-200 plane, was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it is believed to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile on Thursday.
The Malaysian jetliner with 298 people aboard went down in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Grosyman said they had finished the task on Sunday morning, and however, up until Sunday night the train had yet to leave the station as the separatists were blocking the way.
“We are in constant negotiations with them regarding the transportation of the bodies of the victims,” he said. Grosyman said in addition, in the recent hours, 27 bodies and 20 body parts were found and were still at the site.
“I believe that to find bodies of every innocent person who died is our common task,” he added. On the the techical specialists and experts from various countries who were ready to join the investigation at the crash site, he said the main issue was guaranteeing their safety.
“Unfortunately, we are not able to guarantee their safety at the moment, and the government of the Russian Federation, despite being addressed mutiple times, has not assumed any responsibility and did not provide guarantees.
“Therefore, the decision to be present at the site of the plane crash belongs to the experts alone as well as to their respective countries. We, on the other hand, are ready to provide them with a plane and deliver them to the closest safe area at any moment,” he said.
On the arrival of the victim’s relatives in Ukraine, he said there was no official information at the moment and the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry will coordinate the process in accordance with requests of and in cooperation with the respective embassies, said Groysman.
Meanwhile, the spokeperson for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) special monitoring mission to Ukraine, Michael Bociurkiw, said he was told that 167 bodies were stored into three refrigrated railway cars at the train station in the town of Torez.
However, he was unable to verify the number or whether these bodies were actually crom the crash scene. He said based on the conversations with pro-Russian separatists, the railway cars would remain waiting until the arrival of international experts when it would be decided where to take them.
Bociurkiw in a separate statement issued by Ukraine Crisis Media Centre also said that the cars were likely to eventually move to territory controlled by Ukraine’s government, and currently been guarded by the separatists round the clock.
He also said that based on their observation on Sunday, the Ukrainian search and rescue workers took over the difficult task of sorting through debris and remaining body parts.
The 24-strong OSCE special monitoring mission was the first team to arrive at the crash site of MH17 last Friday and has been closely watched by armed pro-Russian separatists.
– BERNAMA
