GRABOVE, Donetsk Oblast - More than two days after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was purportedly shot down by a surface-to-air rocket in war-torn eastern Ukraine, international experts remain absent from the crash site, blocked by Kremlin-backed separatist gunmen.
Kyiv says they are purposely hampering the investigation in order to cover up evidence that would prove they used a Buk missile system provided to them by Russia to shoot down the jetliner, which they mistook for a Ukrainian military transport plane. Separatists and Russia have blamed Kiev for the downing, saying it is the government’s fault for carrying out its “anti-terrorist operation” in the separatist-controlled eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Rescue workers with no experience in such catastrophes have worked slowly to remove the hundreds of mangled corpses splayed across the miles-wide crash site. On July 19, they bagged at least 80 of them, loaded them into a ramshackle pickup and then drove them away. No one on site knew where they were headed.
But as night fell, many of the now festering corpses of the 298 people –
283 passengers and 15 crew – remained exposed to the elements, despite them being in plain view of the workers.
The rebel leader on site, a scruffy man in fatigues adorned with a separatist badge reading “Prosecution General” who goes by the nickname “Grumpy,” said no one would be allowed full access to the crash site and wreckage as long as “experts and investigators of the general prosecutor are working here.”
Raising his Kalashnikov rifle to his shoulder, Grumpy, born in the southern Ukrainian Kherson region, explained his nom de guerre, saying that he gets very angry when he doesn’t “take out” a Ukrainian tank or armored vehicle for a long time.
Grumpy said he has invited hunters to the crash site in order to help locate all the bodies.
“We need the huntsmen to help us in detection of the bodies, as many of them [have severed limbs] and so they haven’t been found yet,” said a bandana-clad rebel called “Mosquito.”
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko accused the rebels, who Kyiv has deemed “terrorists,” of two war crimes – for shooting down the plane and also for mishandling the bodies of the 298 people aboard.
On Saturday afternoon, rescue workers representing Ukraine’s ministry of emergency service – many of whom admitted to supporting the separatist – stood sullen near the four large tents in which they have slept for the past two night.
Grumpy, the rebel leader, said he was please with their work and added that police experts were also on the scene, carrying out an investigation into the incident. However, he didn’t elaborate on the type of police present there, or their expertise.
Some 190 bodies have already been picked up by rescue workers, who have worked only in daylight, due to a lack of generators and other equipment that might allow them light to work through the night, said Aleksey Megrin, head of local emergency services workers on the scene. He declined to answer further questions about the bodies, asking that they be directed to police investigators.
Also on Saturday, Ukraine’s government accused the rebels of deliberately removing 38 corpses from the crash site and taking them to a Donetsk mortuary. Kyiv blamed them for mishandling the corpses and for destroying evidence that could prove what exactly happened to the jetliner.
Grumpy neither denied nor confirmed the claims that some bodies were moved to Donetsk. “Maybe they did it, maybe not,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko and editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].
