Two military aircraft - one Dutch and the other Australian - left Kharkiv Airport in northeastern Ukraine earlier carrying the bodies of 40 victims between them in wooden coffins.
The jets arrived at Eindhoven airport in the
Netherlands where they were met by relatives, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte
and members of the Dutch royal family.
Bells were sounded across the country and the Last
Post played at the airport as an eerie silence fell across the airbase.
A coffin of one victim is carried
from a plane to a hearse
The coffins were carried off the planes by military
personnel and each one put in a hearse.
Sky's Ian Woods, at the airport, said: "Around
1,000 relatives are watching from behind a screen, including members of two
British families, even though they don't know if their loved ones are on board
the planes."
A minute's silence was observed nationwide as a
motorcade took the bodies to the Korporaal Van
Oudheusdenkazerne military barracks in Hilversum, where the long process
of identifying the remains will begin using DNA, dental records and finger
prints.
Jean Fransman, a spokesman for the ministry of
security in the Netherlands, told Sky News: "We have chosen this location
because these facilities have everything that's needed to carry out the
identification process as quickly as possible with respect and
discretion."
A total of 40 hearses are at the
airbase to take away the wooden coffins
The Dutch Prime Minister has warned it could take
weeks or even months to formally identify the victims before their bodies are
released for repatriation.
A team of nine disaster victim identification (DVI)
personnel from Britain, including six police officers, a crime scene manager
and forensic photographer, will assist the Dutch authorities.
There was a national day of mourning in the
Netherlands for the 298 people killed, including 193 Dutch, which will include
a silent march in Amsterdam this evening.
The bodies are the first of some 200 victims which
are expected to be flown out of Ukraine during the course of this week.
It is thought more than 80 bodies still remain at
the scene.
However,
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has cast doubt over the numbers that have
been recovered and handed over by pro-Russian
separatists, and warned it is unclear how many bodies may
have arrived in Kharkiv and been left behind.
"It's quite possible that many bodies are
still out there in the open, in the European summer, subject to interference
and subject to the ravages of heat and animals," he said.
Meanwhile,
the black boxes
from MH17 have now arrived in the UK, where they will be
examined at the headquarters of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in
Farnborough, Hampshire.
Investigators say it will take 24 hours to download
the data from each machine before sending it to the Dutch for analysis.
Skynews
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