Train carrying remains of MH17 victims arrives in Kharkiv

A train carrying bodies from a shot-down Malaysia Airlines flight arrived in this eastern Ukrainian city Tuesday morning, as experts prepared to begin the grisly process of preparing the remains for transport to Holland.

Forensics experts from the Netherlands, France, Malaysia and Australia — all countries whose citizens died in the crash — were set to place the victims’ remains in stronger body bags and lay them in sealed coffins for transfer to Amsterdam, where the process of identifying the victims would start.

The delivery of the bodies — and the earlier handover of the plane’s black boxes to Malaysian representatives — offered some hope that an international investigation might clarify how the civilian airliner carrying 298 passengers and crew was shot down Thursday by an antiaircraft missile over territory held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Experts warned, however, that the crash site has been compromised.

The initial processing in Kharkiv could be completed by Tuesday evening, but it was more likely that the bodies would not be flown back to the Netherlands until Wednesday morning, said Esther Naber, a spokeswoman for the team.

“That’s going to take some time,” Naber said, “because of the sad fact we have so many victims.”

The train carrying the remains arrived in Kharkiv at 12:45 p.m. local time, after a trip of almost 18 hours from rebel-held territory near the town of Torez. It pulled into the Balashovka Railway Station, where the locomotive was switched and taken to a building at the nearby Malysheva factory, a compound that produces military tanks and drilling equipment. Loaded inside refrigerated rail cars were 282 bodies, plus 87 body parts thought to belong to the 16 remaining victims, officials said.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country is home to 193 of the passengers killed in the shootdown, said Tuesday in the The Hague that Ukraine has agreed to allow the Netherlands to lead the investigation. The black boxes, he said, were aboard the train that arrived in Kharkiv.

Farther south, there were reports of intense fighting near rebel-held Donetsk, situated roughly 40 miles west of the crash site. Sporadic gunfire and explosions were heard around the airport and a mining compound in Donetsk. Fighting on Monday damaged 28 transformer substations, leaving some districts in the region without power, according to a statement on the Donetsk City Council’s Web site.

In the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Tuesday that separatist leader Alexander Borodai had lived up to two of the three agreements he had made during behind-the-scenes negotiations that resulted in the handover of the black boxes and the remains. He said the rebels have not yet granted “full access to the crash site so that the investigation may begin.”

A Malaysian team that was sent to Kharkiv has “taken custody of the black boxes, which appear to be in good condition,” he said. “They will held securely in Malaysian custody while the international investigation team is being formalized. At that time, we will pass the black boxes to the international investigation team for further analysis.”

Najib said he was “relieved” that the two sides were able to “secure the breakthrough” that has ended the impasse but that he continued to press for full access to the crash site for investigators.

“So far, the agreement has been honored,” he said. “Malaysia requests that this cooperation continue, and that investigators are granted the full access to the site which was agreed.”

The pro-Russian rebels, following days of resistance, yielded some ground on Monday by pledging broader access for investigators to the crash site, as well as handing over the bodies and the black boxes containing the data and cockpit voice recorders of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

The breakthroughs came after days of international outrage over scenes of bodies decaying in meadows under a hot sun. The U.N. Security Council and world leaders demanded that the rebels allow professional investigators unfettered access to the site.

Still, underlining the intensity of the broader conflict, combat continued in eastern Ukraine. A rebel leader said he was skeptical about discussions to reach a temporary truce in the fight with the pro-Western government of Ukraine, which would have made it easier for experts to study the crash site.

The Malaysia Airlines jet, the recovery of passengers’ bodies and the ensuing investigation have all fallen victim to the conflict that has raged since spring between the Ukrainian government and separatist groups that are armed, and in some cases led, by Russians. The Malaysian airliner was struck by a missile that Ukraine, the United States and many other governments believe was fired by separatists, though the rebels and Moscow have denied it and blamed Kiev instead.

The rebels had allowed onlookers to roam around the crash site and had limited access to investigators while they dickered with international and Ukrainian authorities seeking to retrieve the bodies and assess evidence.

Early Tuesday, the rebels handed over the plane’s black boxes. The transfer took place in a ceremony with a Malaysian delegation in the rebel-controlled regional administration building in Donetsk.

Late Monday, Najib said he had reached an agreement with Borodai for a Malaysian team to take custody of the black-box data and cockpit voice recorders from rebel fighters who had retrieved them and previously refused to turn them over.

Meanwhile, three Dutch investigators, whose access to the crash site was previously blocked by the Russian-backed separatists, began gathering evidence Monday.

In an interview with CNN, Borodai insisted the separatists were eager for the bodies to be collected quickly. He said the rebels had been hampered by statements from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that the separatists were responsible for any bodies that were moved.

“It got to the point where it resembled, if not a horror movie, then black humor,” he said. “When an old woman comes to our rebel groups and says: ‘Look, there is a body of a headless man [that] fell through the roof straight onto my bed. Please take this man away.’ But the rebels say no, because they are following instructions.”

Underscoring the antagonism that contributed to the delays, Borodai told reporters in Donetsk that the bodies and the objects that the rebels believed to be the black boxes would be handed over to “foreign experts, but not to the Ukrainian side.”

He said that he was doubtful that talks with the OSCE on a temporary truce with the Ukrainian military would yield fruit.

“I am not very optimistic about this meeting,” he said. “The previous ones had no results.”

Even as final negotiations progressed over the train carrying the bodies, the Ukrainian military attacked the center of Donetsk. Its central train station was partially evacuated for several hours, although trains continued to run and the facility was not damaged, a representative of the station said.

Ukrainian military authorities made no apologies for carrying out an assault just miles from where the team of international observers was gathering to inspect the scene of the plane crash.

“This is a planned offensive,” said a military spokesman, Vladislav Seleznev. The military was trying to push rebels away from the airport, he said. “Aviation and artillery are not aiming at civilian residences. Their only aim is to block the terrorists and fighters.”

Ukrainian President Petro Poro­shenko announced that the investigation into the crash would be based in the Netherlands.

In remarks carried by the Ukrainian Interfax news agency, he described the rebels as “barbarians” who murdered 298 innocent people and then looted children’s toys from the luggage that dropped from the sky. He said the rebels had committed three crimes — shooting down the plane, treating the bodies with negligence and disrespect, and tampering with evidence.

In Kharkiv, where the train bearing the bodies was headed, the focus was on getting the victims’ remains home.

“I’m here because I hope I can help,” said Marina Kravchenko, an English-language teacher who volunteered to work at a government call center fielding inquiries from relatives of the passengers. “I don’t know what else to do.”