Rebels: No more human remains at MH17 site

There are no more bodies at the MH17 crash site, Andrei Purgin, the vice premier of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has said.

Purgin said his pro-Russian rebels have recovered all victims. “Even the bodies of the people who were under the pieces of wreckage. There is only debris left on the site.”

Purgin said the human remains have been handed over to Ukrainian authorities; the pro-Russian rebels transported everything by train to Charkov.

Forensic investigators at the Corporal van Oudheusden military base in Hilversum announced on Friday that they have identified 65 victims of the July 17 plane crash that killed 298 people.

Of the identified victims 21 had the Dutch nationality; 195 Dutch nationals died when the Malaysian Air Boeing 777 was shot down over Donetsk. Since the identification process started 176 bodies and 527 body parts have been flown over to the Netherlands. Authorities did not specify the nationalities of the other identified victims, at the request of the embassies of the countries involved. Expectations are that it will take several months before all bodies have been identified.