KIEV, Ukraine — The Dutch-led mission to retrieve human remains and evidence from the site of the Malaysia Airlines crash over eastern Ukraine was halted Wednesday because of security concerns.
In announcing the abrupt pullout, only six days after the search officially started, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it was too dangerous for the team to continue working in the war zone. He promised families of the 298 crash victims that the search would resume when Ukraine is “more stable.”
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The team of forensics experts from the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia did not reach the site until July 31, about two weeks after the plane was shot down, because of fighting between government troops and pro-Russian separatists. The team expected to find many human remains but largely recovered only personal effects because local residents and emergency workers already had picked up many bodies and body parts.
The airliner’s data-collection devices, or black boxes, have been retrieved, however.
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