The Netherlands' Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, Saturday expressed shock at the utter disrespect being shown to Malaysian Airlines' plane crash site near Ukraine border
The Hague: The Netherlands' Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, Saturday expressed shock at the utter disrespect being shown to Malaysian Airlines' plane crash site near Ukraine border.
The MH17 plane crash left all 298 passengers killed, including 193 Dutch citizens.
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"I am shocked by the images of totally disrespectful behaviour at the scene of the MH17 crash in Ukraine," Xinhua quoted Rutte as saying during a press conference here.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Pic/AFP
Rutte said he was frustrated by the state of affairs at the disaster area, where research had hardly begun and pictures going around on the Internet with people there showing personal items of victims.
Dutch media Saturday reported about an unknown number of bodies of victims stacked in body bags and removed away in trucks, as illustrated by photos. The destination of the trucks remained unknown.
"It is now imperative and priority that the victims will be salvaged, it is absolutely urgent to have a rapid repatriation of Dutch victims," Rutte added.
The messing around of insurgents "with recognizable and personal items at the scene is downright disgusting," he said.
Rutte spoke of a "very intense phone conversation" that he had Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging him to ensure that the investigation team could access the site, and that the Dutch bodies could be removed from the crash scene at the earliest.
"Time is getting short for Putin to show the world that he is serious about helping," Rutte added.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said Friday that several insurgents were drunk and aggressive at the crash scene.
Russia Saturday called on Kiev and insurgents in eastern Ukraine to give experts the access to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines fight MH17 to facilitate their investigation.
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