Australia has increased its number of officials on the way to the crash site of MH17. The team of 230, comprising 190 federal police and defence personnel, including medical specialists, are either in Ukraine or on the way.
Last remains ... Soldiers carry coffins of victims at Eindhoven military airport. Picture: Vincent Jannink Source: AFP
HOPES Australian Federal Police officers would be deployed to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine are on ice tonight after the mission leaders said the area was too dangerous.
The first 11 unarmed officers were to have been part of a Dutch-led humanitarian mission, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said this afternoon.
While acknowledging it would be a risky mission, Mr Abbott reiterated the message that it would be a primarily police operation, with just a small military contingent.
"Our objective is to get in, get cracking and to get out," he told reporters in Canberra.
But the Netherlands' security and justice department tonight said the situation is too unstable for a large contingent to carry out its work.
"The team of 30 Dutch forensic experts currently has no safe passage to the crash site," the department said in a statement. "Because of fighting in the region the situation is still too unstable to safely go to the crash site to work."
The department said the Dutch team was remaining in the the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk.
'Get in and get out' ... PM Tony Abbott addresses reporters this afternoon on the Australian police mission to the MH17 site. Source: News Corp Australia
Russian-backed separatists — who are believed to have shot the plane down, killing 298, more than a week ago — in control of the area around the crash site in Ukraine have agreed to allow an unarmed international police team to recover more bodies and start a forensic examination of wreckage.
But the Ukraine army is beginning an assault on the separatists, ramping up the dangers.
The Dutch-Australian mission is search for unrecovered bodies and remains and conduct a forensic examination of the crash site. The team will stay as long as possible to do a professional job, but it should take no longer than two to three weeks.
"We don't want to be there any longer than is absolutely necessary," Mr Abbott said.
The prime minister stressed the mission was solely humanitarian and had "absolutely nothing" to do with the politics of eastern Europe.
"Others can get involved if they wish ... our whole and sole purpose is to claim our dead and bring them home," he said.
The 170 AFP cops are part of a team of 230, also comprising defence personnel and medical specialists, either in Ukraine or on the way, who have been awaiting permission from that country's parliament to enter the site.
Tragic scene ... Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski and Jerzy Dyczynsk from Australia react as they arrive at the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 to look for their late 25 years old daughter Fatima. Source: AFP
Sending armed defence personnel into a war zone has been criticised by some, with one unnamed senior defence source telling Fairfax newspapers the operation should be a civilian one.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said "a number'' of those in the operation would be armed, but she would not say how many.
``But the main focus is on having police investigators, those who are expert in body identification and those who are expert in investigations, Dutch and Australian at this stage (on the site),'' she told Network Ten, stressing that it remained a non-threatening operation.
The PM's special envoy former Air Chief Marshal Houston also this morning described attempts to secure the site and retrieve the remaining bodies from the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed more than a week ago, killing 298, as a humanitarian operation.
Long search ... members of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service search for bodies in a field near the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), in Donetsk region. Source: AFP
"I think it is going to be very important to posture a non-aggressive, non-threatening force so that nobody will interfere with it.''
Several other countries affected by the disaster have voiced support for an armed force and have offered resources and personnel.
Ms Bishop is pushing for the Ukrainian parliament to ratify a deployment agreement, which would allow arms for self-defence, at a special sitting on Tuesday.
She said any delay following the collapse of Ukraine's governing coalition was unacceptable.
The foreign minister was speaking in Amsterdam, near where the bodies recovered from the MH17 crash site have been taken for identification.
LABOR: WHAT ABOUT US?
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said she had yet to receive a briefing from the government on the latest developments.
"We have gone out of our way, as a Labor opposition, to be supportive of the government's efforts,'' she told ABC TV.
"We think that this is a time for national unity.''
BLACK BOX DATA 'SHOWS EXPLOSION'
CBS News early today reported unreleased data from one of MH17's black box flight recorders show "findings consistent with the plane's fuselage being hit multiple times by shrapnel from a missile explosion."
The report has been widely repeated by other media but relies on an unnamed "European air safety official" who described the finding as "massive explosive decompression."
The two black boxes were handed over by pro-Russian rebels last week.
FAMILIES APPLAUD RETURN OF BODIES
The last of the MH17 bodies that were trained out of eastern Ukraine have arrived in the Netherlands to be met with quiet applause from more than 300 grieving relatives.
Thirty-eight coffins were transported from Kharkiv to Eindhoven air base on Saturday aboard an Australian C17 Globemaster and a Dutch C130 Hercules.
The same C17 had earlier carried more than 100 unarmed Australian police in the other direction. The batch of Federal Police, who had been in London, left on the C17 on the outward bound flight to Kharkiv to help secure the safety of forensic investigators at the crash site.
Memorial ... People travelling through Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, Holland, lay floral tributes to remember the victims of Flight MH17. Picture by Ben Stevens / i-Images Source: News Corp Australia
The Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop attended the final repatriation of these bodies into the Netherlands early this morning. It is believed Ms Bishop also farewelled the Australian police earlier in the day in an operation that was kept under wraps.
As has been the case for the previous three days, the final delivery of bodies was received with full military gravitas and honour, including a minutes silence and the 17 country flags flown at half mast. They were escorted by motorcycles an hour up the country to Hilversum where the forensic examinations are taking place.
FORENSIC EXPERTS WITH GRIM TASK OF SORTING REMAINS
PATRICK CARLYON: The barbarians at MH17 site
VICTORIAN FAMILY PERISHED: Grandparents living a nightmare
Sombre scene ... Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans, right, and his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop. Picture: Sergey Bobok Source: AFP
The Dutch government says the first victim has been identified from the Malaysia Airlines disaster.
Details of the victim have not been released, but it was reported to be a Dutch national. Next of kin have been informed.
Some 200 forensic experts are working at a military barracks in the city of Hilversum to identify human remains recovered from the site.
The Dutch aren't sure how many bodies are now in the Netherlands, but in total 227 coffins carrying remains have arrived since the shuttle flights began on Wednesday.
An unknown number of bodies remain at the crash site in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine.
In further developments Ms Bishop warned other parents against travelling to the crash site after bereaved Australian parents Angela and George Dyczynski arrived at the Ukrainian war zone to find the remains of their only child, Fatima.
Crash site ... Flowers left by parents of an victim of the crash laid on a piece of MH17, near the village of Grabovo. Picture: Bulent Kilic Source: AFP
"It would be ill advised for people to go to the site," Ms Bishop said.
"It is still in the middle of a war zone, there are heavily armed separatists who are engaged in conflict with the Ukraine military and the separatists are around the crash site."
The Perth parents undertook an exhausting and arduous three day multi-country expedition defying government warnings.
MH17: Shot down plane exposes Ukraine's heartbreaking plight
MH17: Tony Abbott increases Australian personnel in Ukraine
FORENSIC EXPERTS DEPLOYED
This comes as a team of forensic experts from seven nations prepares to depart Kharkiv after completing the first traumatic stage of sorting bodies and human remains.
The bodies and remains were earlier removed in shambolic fashion from the crash site by separatists and volunteers and put on a train with four coldroom carriages in the nearby conflict city of Donetsk before being taken north to Kharkiv.
Since Wednesday, a forensic team of Dutch, British, Malaysian, American, German, Swiss and seven Australians has been emptying each carriage in turn and taking them to a factory in a deserted industrial complex on the outskirts of the city.
Sad procession ... A convoy of hearses carry bodies in Boxtel, Netherlands. Picture: Peter Macdiarmid Source: Getty Images
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