Kharkiv - The deputy head of the Dutch search mission in Ukraine, Hans van der Veen, and several other experts are heading to the Donetsk region where they will continue to look for personal belongings of the passengers from the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, the press service of the Kharkiv region administration has reported.
According to the press service of the Kharkiv region administration, this announcement was made by senior Dutch National Police superintendent Patrick Voss, a member of the MH17 temporary search mission, at a meeting with Kharkiv Region Governor Ihor Baluta on Monday.
The meeting was also attended by the director of the Kharkiv region administration’s department for the economy and international relations, Viktor Kovalenko, the first deputy head of the regional emergency situations service, Oleksandr Volobuyev, the first secretary for the political section at the Dutch embassy in Paris, Daniel Stork, as well as representatives of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, the Security Service of Ukraine and structural divisions of the Kharkiv region administration.
The main goal of this trip to the Donetsk region is to collect the victims’ personal belongings at the crash site, Voss said at the meeting. The search mission has already managed to find some personal items, including burned documents, passports and driving licenses, as well as several suitcases. It was impossible to examine the entire territory for quite understandable reasons, he said.
According to Voss, within the next few days, OSCE staff and the Dutch side will discuss whether or not the search operation at the Malaysian Boeing crash site should continue.
Voss also thanked the Kharkiv region administration for its assistance to the Dutch search mission.
Baluta, for his part, promised to continue to help mission representatives in every possible way.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in militia-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.
