The search for victims of the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine is still ongoing as only about 200 bodies appear to have been recovered so far. Dutch officials say that body parts still remain at the crash site and that only 200 bodies have been scheduled to be flown back to the Netherlands today. Forensics expert Jan Tuinder said his team had begun counting the bodies that earlier arrived in the town of Kharkiv.
It is believed that the first set of bodies, were moved out of territory held by pro-Russian rebels earlier this week.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday in the town of Kharkiv, Mr Tuinder said they would have to go back to the crash site to carry out another search. “We will not leave until [all] remains have left this country so we will have to go on and bargain again with the people over there,” he said.
It has been widely reported that more than 280 bodies had been on the train, which brought the remains to Kharkiv.
However, Mr Tuinder later clarified that a reliable source who was there during the loading of the bodies on to the train had given a figure of 200. He said this number could increase as the forensics teams go through the refrigerated wagons.
Mr Tuinder also stressed that with rebels still occupying the crash site the chances of vital evidence being recovered in order to determine what happened is slim stating that “with so much disturbance in the area evidence will be destroyed”.