MH17 crash: Abandoned crime scene at Unkraine’s Grabove
The Netherlands and Australia are standing by to send police and troops to the site of the Malaysia Airlines crash in eastern Ukraine, in an attempt to finally secure the scene of MH17 disaster.
Pro-Russia separatists in the area, who are accused of bringing down the plane using a surface-to-air missile, have said they would welcome international investigators but the presence of foreign forces in the volatile region presents challenges, with military confrontation between Ukraine’s forces and rebels rumbling on in the immediate vicinity.
Of the dead, 193 were Dutch citizens and 28 were Australians. Many of the bodies were removed from the site by local emergency workers and transferred by train to Kharkiv, from where they are being flown in batches to the Netherlands. But observers say there are still human remains at the site and part of the task of the 40 Dutch police who are due to arrive will be to ensure that all the bodies and body parts are found.
Dutch PM Mark Rutte said on Friday that the contingent would be unarmed. “If we go with a big military presence, the situation could become more unstable than stable,” he said.
The Australian PM, Tony Abbott, said his country was also ready to send police and had officers standing by in Europe, ready to travel to the site if agreement is achieved.
“This will be a police-led humanitarian mission,” the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said in Kharkiv, where she has been overseeing the arrival and onward flights to the Netherlands for the remains. “And there will be body identification and forensic experts. And of course we will ensure they are safe, that they will have protection.”
A rebel fighter who arrived at the scene soon after the crash told journalist on Friday that he and his men had found locals looting items from the site and taking pieces of fuselage to sell as scrap metal.
The most problematic element of the Dutch and Australian missions will be security. Although both Ukrainian forces and the rebels have promised to observe a ceasefire in the immediate area around the crash site, fighting close to the regional capital, Donetsk, has intensified in recent days, with heavy shelling audible even in the centre of Donetsk in the early hours of Friday morning.
Russia and Ukraine are continuing accusing the other of shelling across the border. Ukraine says Russia has carried out nightly shelling into its territory in recent days, and also accuses the Russians of shooting down Ukrainian planes from inside Russia while Russia claimed the Ukrainians fired mortar rounds into Russia on Friday.
Glossary:
Stand by: be ready to take action
Troops: soldiers esp. in large group
In an attempt: an act of trying to do something , esp. something difficult with no success(nổ lực)
Bring down: to make an aircraft fall out of the sky
Rumble on: to continue slowly and steadily for a long time
Immediate: next to/ very close to a particular place
(the) Vicinity: the area around a particular place
In batches: a number of people or things that are dealt in large number
Forensic /fəˈrensɪk/ or /fəˈrenzɪk/:connected with the scientific tests used by the police in solving crimes
=> Forensic expert: chuyên gia pháp y
Looting /luːtɪŋ /: to steal from shops/ stores esp. after fire, war, accident ect.
Mission: a task which is very difficult and takes a long time to complete
Ceasefire /ˈsiːsfaɪər/: a time when enemies agree to stop fighting, usually while a way is found to end the fighting permanently = Truce
Shelling /ˈʃelɪŋ/ : the firing of shells from a large gun
Shell: a metal case filled with explosive, to be fired from a large gun
