Bodies leave Ukraine war zone, truce called at MH17 crash site

A train carrying the remains of 280 people killed in the Malaysian plane disaster was finally allowed to leave a rebel-held region in eastern Ukraine as the militants declared a truce Tuesday around the crash site.

 

Five days after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was allegedly shot out of the sky, pro-Russian separatists conceded to a furious international clamour for the bodies and the plane´s black boxes to be handed over to investigators.

 

The devices, which record cockpit activity and flight data, were handed to Malaysian officials by the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People´s Republic, Alexander Borodai, in front of scores of journalists.

 

"We will order a ceasefire in an area of 10 kilometres around" the site of the disaster, which killed all 298 people on board the plane, he said.

 

Meanwhile, after days of bitter wrangling, the rebels released the bodies of the dead.

 

Loaded on a train, they will arrive in the government-controlled city of Kharkiv Tuesday before being put on a plane to the Netherlands, where the flight to Kuala Lumpur originated and which suffered the greatest loss, with 193 citizens killed in the crash.

 

The rebel concessions came after US President Barack Obama insisted that Moscow force the insurgents it is accused of backing to cooperate with an international probe into the disaster.

 

Moscow, which has drawn ire for failing to rein in the rebels, backed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the downing of the plane and demanding access to the crash site.

 

A senior Russian defence ministry official insisted that "Russia did not give the rebels Buk missile systems or any other kinds of weapons or military hardware".

Jet crash rekindles MH370 families' grief, suspicion

The latest Malaysia Airlines disaster has rekindled the grief of MH370 relatives who say the new crash bears out their furious criticisms of the nation´s flag carrier and government.

 

Flight MH17, a Boeing 777-200, went down in strife-torn eastern Ukraine on Thursday with 298 passengers and crew, mostly Dutch citizens.

 

The tragedy has reopened the deep emotional wounds caused by the March 8 disappearance of flight MH370, whose fate remains one of the biggest aviation mysteries ever.

 

Many of them have repeatedly accused the airline and Malaysian government of withholding information and of suspicious conduct in handling the probe into the disaster.

 

"My heart is breaking for another 295 souls on board, and another 295 families. Now I cannot stop shaking," said Sarah Bajc, partner of MH370 passenger Philip Wood.

 

US officials said MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, a possible casualty of a violent rebellion by pro-Russian insurgents.

 

But Bajc said "it was only a matter of time" that a new tragedy would hit struggling Malaysia Airlines.

 

Bajc is among a group of vocal MH370 relatives who have criticised the government and airline´s handling of the search for the missing plane and investigation into what might have caused it, alleging information was being withheld.

 

"When symptoms of a disease are ignored, the disease festers," she said in an email.

 

"Another (Malaysia Airlines) flight has gone down. Another 777... Far too much coincidence for the two situations to not be linked in some way." "How do we know a similar thing didn´t happen to MH370?" she said.

 

Flight MH370 vanished March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

 

The Boeing 777-400 is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, but an extensive search has turned up no sign of wreckage so far, leaving families frustrated and anguished.