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Experts waiting for train with MH17 bodies

Australian experts are on the ground in Ukraine waiting to help identify victims of the MH17 crash, however the bodies are still yet to be released by rebels in the east of the country.

A team of international forensic experts is waiting for a refrigerated train loaded with almost 200 bodies to be released from the village of Torez near the crash site.

However it's not sure where exactly the train will be sent, with a Dutch diplomat suggesting the bodies could eventually be identified in the Netherlands.


Armed pro-Russian rebels secure the area next to a refrigerated train loaded with the bodies of victims, in Torez, eastern Ukraine. Photo: AP.


Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday laid out what he said was overwhelming evidence of Russian complicity in the downing of a Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine as he made the US case against Moscow in the most emphatic and explicit terms yet.

Delivering his points in a blitz of US morning news shows, Kerry demanded that Russia take responsibility for actions of allied separatists suspected of shooting down the passenger plane and he expressed disgust over the rebels' "grotesque" mishandling of victims' bodies at the crash site.

He said foreign investigators have been given only limited access to the crash site. "Drunken separatists have been piling bodies into trucks and removing them from the site ... What's happening is really grotesque and it is contrary to everything President Putin and Russia said they would do."

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman on Sunday said 192 bodies and eight fragments had been loaded onto the train by Ukrainian emergency services.

That number includes more than 30 bodies that were taken by rebel forces to Donetsk but then returned.

Another 27 bodies and 20 fragments are to be put into another refrigerator and loaded onto a second train along with any other bodies that are recovered.

Mr Groysman told reporters in Kiev "at this point we haven't yet received any opportunity to dispatch the (first) train".

The deputy PM said the government would reveal where the train was going once militants allowed it to leave Torez.

"We will inform you when we get it from them," he said through a translator.

"Then international experts and Ukrainian experts will meet that train. When we have information we will tell you when, how and where to."

Emergency workers remove human remains from the grim site of the MH17 crash. Photo: AP.


OSCE chief monitor Ertugrul Apakan told reporters Australian experts had arrived in Kiev "but there are more people we expect from Australia to come here".

Dutch diplomat Kees van Baar said his country would lead the expert team which would identify the bodies.

"There are Australian experts in the team - they are part of the team," he confirmed.

"If these bodies are being released they will be met by a team of international experts and they are going to be identified.

"That can be here (in Ukraine) or the Netherlands or anywhere. It will however be a joint effort by all the experts from Ukraine and all those countries involved."

Mr van Baar revealed no next of kin had yet arrived in Ukraine.

"There's no question as such right now of relatives arriving (because) we don't know where the bodies will go to right now."

An Ukrainian paramedic walks amongst charred debris at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine. Photo: AP.


It's been suggested the train could travel to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kharkiv.

Mr Groysman said Kharkiv was ready to receive the deceased and accommodate victims' families "but that doesn't mean we need to go to Kharkiv".

He said it was unlikely the international community would allow the bodies to be sent to rebel-controlled Donetsk because it was too dangerous.

Mr Groysman said there were 200 international experts already in Ukraine including forensic experts and crash investigators.

The senior official said the government would help international experts travel to the crash site but they would be doing so at their own risk because Russia hadn't guaranteed safe passage.

Nevertheless he insisted: "Our task is to find every body of perished victims. The ministry of emergency will continue rescue works in order to find all the remains."

There are 800 local volunteers at the crash site.

Toys and flowers are placed on the charred fuselage at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Photo: AP.


Canberra has dispatched six foreign affairs officers, a five-member emergency response team and a number of federal police investigators.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is sending two investigators to support the international probe.

Almost 300 people, including 37 Australian citizens and residents, perished when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was downed on Thursday.