Netherlands holds solemn ceremony for victims of MH17 plane crash

The Netherlands has received the first victims' bodies from crashed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in a solemn ceremony at Eindhoven air base. Forty hearses left for the town of Hilversum where the formal identification process will begin.The Netherlands is observing a national day of mourning for the 298 victims, most of whom were Dutch.

Ukrainian pro-Russian rebels have been widely accused of shooting down the plane on 17 July.

UK government sources say intelligence shows rebels deliberately tampered with evidence, moving bodies and placing parts from other planes in the debris.
Ukrainian PM Arseniy Yatseniuk claims one of its jets may have been downed by an air-to-air missile. As fighting continued in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, officials in Kiev said that two aircraft, thought to be military jets, had been downed just 35km (20 miles) from the crash site.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk later reported that one of the fighters could have been hit by an air-to-air missile. He did not directly accuse Russia but said it was not brought down by a Ukrainian jet.

 

The hearses left Eindhoven air base in a cortege, passed flags at half mast

Members of the Dutch royal family and Prime Minister Mark Rutte watched the coffins leave the planes

Earlier, honour guards had carried the coffins on to two planes at Kharkiv airport

Many observing the day of mourning went to Schiphol Airport, where flight MH17 took off from, to lay flowers
 

Teams of investigators from several countries are still at the crash site

Two military planes - one Dutch and the other Australian - carrying the first 40 coffins landed at Eindhoven air base on Wednesday afternoon. They were met by members of the Dutch royal family,

Prime Minister Mark Rutte and hundreds of victims' relatives. Churches around the Netherlands rang their bells for five minutes before the planes landed, and flags of all the nations affected by the disaster have been flying at half mast. There was also a minute's silence. The coffins were slowly loaded into a fleet of waiting hearses which then moved off in motorcades.

A day of mourning is being held in the Netherlands. All the bodies are being taken to the Korporaal van Oudheusden barracks south of the city of Hilversum for identification, a process that could take months. Two more planes carrying victims are due to arrive in Eindhoven on Thursday. Earlier, the coffins had been loaded on to the planes by a military guard of honour at Kharkiv airport in eastern Ukraine.

There has been mounting international anger at the delays in recovering the bodies. Pro-Russian rebel leader Alexander Borodai denied neglecting bodies at the scene.  Borodai claimed that international observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) told them to leave the bodies to be collected by experts.
"So we wait a day. We wait a second day. A third day. Come on! Not a single expert. Well, to leave the bodies there any longer, in 30 degree heat, it's absurd. It's simply inhuman. It's a scene from a horror movie," he said.
OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw denied they told rebels not to move the bodies. He told journalists, "It is not consistent with our mandate to tell people what to do. We're here to monitor, observe and report."