Dutch experts help recover MH17 crash items despite fighting nearby

Four Dutch experts and local emergency services made a start on Monday recovering personal belongings from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines MH17 in east Ukraine, carting away boxes of personal possessions despite fighting nearby. But a Dutch official coordinating the repatriation mission said the aim was still to get a Dutch team on site to comb the crash area, despite the fighting between government troops and separatist rebels. But, he conceded, a Dutch team might not be able to get to the site until spring because the cold weather makes it inaccessible.

The State Emergency Services managed to recover many personal belongings, nine boxes of a cubic meter each, from the crash site. (There was) jewelry, watches, credit cards, a driving licence, a passport, an iPad, photos - things that really should be with relatives.

Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch repatriation mission

The experts said they were on hand to advise the local Emergencies Ministry team combing the wreckage in the fields where the Boeing 777 was brought down on July 17, killing all 298 passengers and crew. Two-thirds of the victims were Dutch nationals and the Dutch Safety Board is leading the investigation. A short but intense exchange of artillery fire played out near the grassy fields where the team collected items such as books, toothpaste, playing cards, a plastic watch and a stick of antiperspirant. Many items were too charred to identify. Armed pro-Russian rebels stood around the site while workers from the European rights and security watchdog OSCE monitored the recovery process.

These emergency services were different from the large group of people who were there in the first days after the crash. These people did a great job (collecting bodies), also by our standards.

Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch repatriation mission

World MH17