MOSCOW, July 21 (RIA Novosti) – The departure of a Kharkiv-bound train carrying bodies of victims of last week’s Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine was delayed Monday because of a damaged railway, an OSCE official in Ukraine said.
A spokesman for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Michael Bociurkiw, told reporters in Kiev that the departure of the train will be discussed later in the day.
So far 272 bodies of Malaysia Airlines plane crash victims have been discovered, of which 251 were loaded into a refrigerated train at a station in the town of Torez near the crash site, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Earlier in the day, a group of Dutch forensic experts arrived at the train station and said that bodies of the crash victims were stored in suitable environment.
On Sunday, the prime-minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Alexander Borodai, said that the train would remain in Torez until arrival of international experts.
Malaysia Airlines' Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17 near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers on board the airliner died, including 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
Kiev has accused independence supporters of downing the Malaysian airliner. Self-defense militia members insist that they have no required technology to shoot a target flying this high.
Commenting on the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was vital to abstain from hasty conclusions on the case before the international investigation was over.
