Australische journalist weigert MH17-spullen terug te geven
http://www.joop.nl/nieuws/australische-journalist-weigert-mh17-spullen-terug-te-geven
While checking on any other information on Demjin Doroschenko, I came across another freelance reporter that was at the site: freelance photojournalist Filip Warwick.
MH17 crash site: Freelance journalist Filip Warwick reveals grim first views (26 Photos - video)
http://www.smh.com.au/world/mh17-crash-site-freelance-journalist-filip-warwick-reveals-grim-first-views-20140719-zurxu.html
Back dated - July 19, 2014 - Walking around the crash site of the ill-fated MH17, freelance photojournalist Filip Warwick witnessed the lives of nearly 300 victims frozen in time.
"I saw one or two passengers still strapped into their seats," he told Fairfax Media from Donetsk province, the epicentre of the pro-Russian movement and the region in which the Malaysia Airlines flight fell.
"It's a very grim sight out there.
"So many bodies are beyond recognition, and then there are one or two with barely a scratch and then other cases just bones."
While Ukraine has invited international aviation representatives to assist with the investigation of the MH17 crash, actually getting those representatives to the site is a separate challenge, said Warwick.
"They can arrive to Kiev, but it's another matter altogether of having them actually access the site itself," he said.
"In terms of the area itself there are a number of checkpoints. Even to get here from Donetsk itself you have to go through six or seven checkpoints."
Warwick's arrival at the scene came in the first few hours before there was any security presence, and he believes he saw strong evidence that looting was already well underway.
"I noticed that I hadn't come across a single wallet with money, or a mobile phone or a camera. They've all mysteriously gone missing."
Among the shocks for Warwick was the almost complete lack of official presence or signs of investigation, noting: "The place hadn’t yet been roped off."
When he arrived he said villagers, locals and journalists were walking around stepping on wings and over the wreckage.
Speaking with Fairfax Media more than 24 hours after a surface-to-air-missile struck flight MH17, he noted the absence of organised disaster recovery procedures, such as a "grid".
"The grid is to make sure you have nothing left uncovered. You would use a grid to make marks of the location and you would also mark the various pieces of evidence on the ground," he said.
"So a body would be marked in a particular colour, personal items given a particular colour and plane parts a particular colour. This is standard procedure for any crime scene and this is missing as we speak."
Dr Geoff Dell, an air crash investigation expert from Central Queensland University, also emphasised the importance of proper investigation protocols such as the setting up of a grid when he spoke with Fairfax Media.
Warwick said he believed the absence of such protocols suggested that those on the ground lacked "the know-how" in dealing with such circumstances.
He reported that a group of 10 separatist soldiers were situated slightly off from the crash site, but "they weren't interacting with anyone and there wasn't anyone interacting with them.
"The only people you could talk to are the emergency services, who are looking for bodies and they won't comment," he said.
Local miners, firemen, fathers and sons have all been seen in the crash area, where bodies are being marked by sticks with white ribbons.
The bodies are reportedly "starting to decompose in the fields", yet Warwick said there was no indication as to when a recovery operation for the victims would take place.
July 21, 2014 -
Malaysia Airlines MH17 passengers’ luggage looted, credit cards stolen (Photos - last one - close up plane part)
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/malaysia-airlines-mh17-passengers-luggage-looted-credit-cards-stolen/news-story/59c9d76c379bd2ea1acc874acf8385b1
CREDIT and debit cards are among hundreds of items reportedly stolen from the belongings of dead passengers from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Pro-Russian insurgents are accused of looting personal possessions, as well as taking, tampering with and destroying evidence.
The Dutch Banking Association said it was taking “preventive measures” to ensure the stolen cards would not be used for personal gain.
It also said it would compensate the families of victims in the event the cards were used.
“International media report that victims’ bank cards have been stolen,” it said in a statement. “Banks are taking preventive measures as necessary.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was saddened to see images of “shameless” rebels handling passenger possessions and walking around the crash site.
The Boeing 777-200ER, which was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, appeared to have broken up before hitting the ground and the burning wreckage — which included body parts and the belongings of passengers — was scattered over a 25km area.
Freelance photojournalist Filip Warwick said that he had not come across a single wallet with money, mobile phone or camera at the crash site.
“In some areas of this field, near the small town of Grabovo in a remote eastern Ukrainian farming region close to the Russian border, backpacks and other carry-on luggage were grouped together,” he writes in USA Today.
“It was clear that looters had opened and rifled through some of them.”
The reports of stolen property were backed up by self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Alexander Borodai who said local residents may have used victims’ credit cards, NBC News reported.
Australian journalist Demjin Doroschenko also reported on the chaos at the scene.
The 43-year-old said he had rummaged through some of the passengers’ belongings in a desperate bid to retrieve personal information including passports and boarding passes to give to their families.
But he said many items had been stolen from the luggage and, like Warwick, he failed to find one wallet with any money in it.
Russian-backed separatists are preventing investigators from accessing evidence, but also possessions, from the site.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the site was being treated more like a garden clean-up than a forensic investigation and called for greater cooperation and access to the site.
“The wreckage has been picked over, it’s been trashed, it’s been trampled,” he said.
Plane crashes are subjected to a rigorous independent investigation to determine the cause of the crash, and in some cases airlines do make efforts to reunite luggage and possessions with passengers or their next of kin.
However, given the complex nature of this disaster, it remains unclear if any of this will take place.
In 2009, US Airways salvaged some luggage and possessions belonging to passengers and crew after Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River and sank.
The 150 passengers were forced to leave their belongings behind after scrambling onto rescue boats.
US Airways together with Texas-based company Global-BMS spent four months recovering, sorting, cleaning and restoring 36,000 belongings recovered following the disaster, USA Today reported at the time.
Under the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act airlines are required to return passenger possessions to their families when a fatal crash occurs.
July 19, 2014 -
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: Pro-Russian Looters Rifle Through British Victim's Belongings And 'Take Bodies Of The Dead' (Photos)
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/19/malaysia-airlines-flight-_n_5601703.html
Disturbing reports have emerged of pro-Russian separatists removing 38 bodies, stealing from the dead and attempting to destroy evidence at the Malaysia Airlines crash scene.
The bodies of passengers which have been strewn across the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 for nearly 48 hours are finally being recovered by Ukraine authorities. But Ukraine has accused rebels of already tampering with victims and their luggage - removing 38 bodies from the scene.
Looters have reportedly robbed the bodies of victims of the passenger jet, including Newcastle United fan John Alder.
Freelance journalist Demjen Doroschenko who was at the scene said he discovered Mr Alder's body outside the village of Grabovo within hours of the disaster and saw that his belongings had been disturbed.
He told The Sun: "I saw John Alder's body and took a picture of a medicine box he had with him. You could see they had been through his things.
"He had a pair of Tesco binoculars with him in a case. They had pulled the binoculars out of the case. But when they say the glass had been broken they threw them back because they weren't any good for them."
The Ukraine government said "terrorists, with the help of Russia, are trying to destroy evidence of international crimes", adding it had obtained data which showed bodies had been taken to a morgue in Donetsk.
Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Kiev government, said: "I have received information that terrorist death-hunters were collecting not only cash and jewellery of the crashed Boeing dead passengers but also the credit cards of the victims."
However, reporters at the scene say some bodies are now being carried out on stretchers after a makeshift cordon was set up this morning, following a deal between separatists and Kiev.
Until now, many of the dead passengers had been left uncovered, lying among the plane wreckage in an open field in the rebel-controlled area.
In a sensational attack against Vladimir Putin, a Ukraine official earlier published an image purporting to show a tiny corpse of an infant victim of MH17 lying in a field, accusing the Russian President of murdering the baby.
Senior government advisor Anton Gerashchenko posted the graphic picture on Facebook with a message to Putin saying: "This baby's death is on your conscience", before adding "Damn you for centuries!"
In a series of stark tweets, BBC reporter Fergal Keane, who is at the scene of the crash, said: "At crash site. Body parts strewn in field. Obscenity of war at its most graphic.
"Saddest to see was tiny shape under white sheet. Brown hair emerging. A toddler. By sunflower field."
(Article continues.)
Additional back dated articles:
July 19, 2014 -
MH17 tragedy: Chaos at crash scene amid reports of looting (Video - Photos)
http://www.smh.com.au/world/mh17-tragedy-chaos-at-crash-scene-amid-reports-of-looting-20140719-zuqib.html
July 18, 2014 -
MH17 crash site 'littered with bodies' (Video)
http://www.smh.com.au/video/video-news/video-world-news/mh17-crash-site-littered-with-bodies-20140718-3c6ru.html
