MOSCOW, July 19 (RIA Novosti) – Some 186 dead bodies have been found at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines MH 17 in eastern Ukraine, UNIAN news agency reported with reference to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.
"As of 7:00 a.m. local time, July 19, the bodies of 186 victims have been found," according to the agency's website.
Currently, employees of the emergency service are gathering the remains of the victims. The bodies will be taken to Kharkiv, where they will be identified in the laboratory. It is assumed that the remains will be transported in refrigerated trucks, which have not yet arrived at the site, according to a RIA Novosti reporter.
Independence supporters of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) have said they control the area of the MH 17 crash. DPR representatives refute the information about the kidnapping of bodies.
"Why would we need them [the bodies]? On the contrary, we want the experts to come and take them away," a DPR public prosecutor’s office representative told RIA Novosti.
Earlier, UNIAN news agency reported that militias had allegedly stolen 36 bodies of victims of the crash. The armed men chased away the rescuers and took most of their means of communication, the agency said, citing the press service of the Donetsk Regional State Administration.
On Friday, 30 members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) visited the crash site. The press office of the OSCE then stated that the observers had not been provided full access to the scene. A DPR militia representative confirmed this information to RIA Novosti, saying they were “afraid they [observers] might plant something [on us].”
Following the Friday talks, Kiev the militia managed to agree on the establishment of a 20-kilometer security zone at the crash site.
The Malaysia Airlines plane flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on Thursday near the town of Torez in Ukraine’s Donetsk Region. The complete death toll is 298 people.
Kiev blamed independence supporters in the turbulent Donetsk Region for downing the passenger plane with a surface-to-air missile.
The leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic said local militia did not have the required technology to shoot a target flying as high as 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in the air. The missile systems that were found in the Ukrainian military unit, which was captured by self-defense forces, were a «scrap pile» unfit to be used and beyond repair, according to independence supporters.
