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BOEING 777 CRASH IN DONBASS

Bodies of Boeing-777 crash victims still in town of Torez near crash site - DPR

MOSCOW, July 20, /ITAR-TASS/. Bodies of those killed in the crash of the Boeing-777 airplane of the Malaysian Airlines in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region are kept in the town of Torez located in the vicinity of the crash site, Sergei Kavtaradze, an official representative of the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and member of the DPR Security Council, said on Sunday.

A Boeing-777 of the Malaysian Airlines en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in July 17 in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Region 60 km from the Russian border, in the zone of combat operation between the Donetsk self-defence forces and the Ukrainian army. All the passengers and crewmembers onboard the plane - 298 people - died. Travelling aboard the plane were citizens of ten countries, including 192 Dutchmen and 10 British nationals.

Kavtaradze said that the Kiev authorities were to take a decision about the bodies. “So far, I do not know where they plan to take them to,” he told the Russian News Service.

Earlier on Sunday, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman, who heads the state committee investigating the air crash, said that representatives of the Kiev authorities and Donetsk’s self-defence forces had agreed to start evacuation of the bodies of those killed in the Boeing-777 crash.

“We have reached a preliminary agreement with those who are controlling the airplane’s crash area to evacuate the bodies of casualties,” the press service of the Ukrainian Ministry of regional development, construction and housing and utilities sector quoted Groisman as saying. The bodies of the crash victims would be taken to the place of forensic expertise in refrigerated railroad cars, he added.

By now, as many as 196 dead bodies have been found dead at the crash.

The government of the Donetsk People’s Republic pledged to guarantee security of international experts at the site of the accident. Apart from that, the Donetsk republic authorities urged Kiev to conclude a ceasefire agreement and provide conditions for the work of specialists at the airplane’s crash site.

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