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| The "death train" arrives in Kharkiv |
Late Tuesday, ABC Australia reported that the train which was supposedly carrying the remains of 282 bodies from the MH17 disaster arrived in the city of Kharkiv- but the train arrived with only 200 bodies on board.
"We are sure of having 200 bodies and body parts, that is all that I know," said Jan Tuinder, head of the Dutch delegation, on Tuesday. It is believed pro-Russian separatists fired the SA-11 surface-to-air missile which blew up the Malaysian jet liner.
It is perhaps strange that the alleged perpetrators of this disaster, the Russian-backed separatists, are not only the same people who loaded the bodies onto the train, but are also the same people who said there were 282 bodies on the train. How could 82 bodies possibly disappear on a train?
This is just one of the countless lingering questions in the wake of the crash of Malaysian Flight MH17.
International monitors report that the crash site is still being "compromised" by separatists near Donetsk, a pro-Russian rebel stronghold.
According to ABC Australia:
"There were human remains that had not been picked up," said Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observer mission after visiting the scene, amid reports of the wreckage being rearranged.
"What struck us is that we did not monitor any recovery activity in place," he said, pointing out that OSCE observers saw human remains in at least two areas at the sprawling crash site in rebel-held territory.
On Monday, separatists released the bodies of 282 MH17 victims, sending the corpses by refrigerated train to the government-controlled city of Kharkiv. The train, consisting of five refrigerated cars, arrived Tuesday and an Interpol forensics team has begun identifying victims.
Whether the discrepancy is the result of botched arithmetic or media confusion, it will nonetheless fuel conspiracy fires for weeks to come, as conspiracy theories centered around both Malaysian Flight MH17 and MH370 continue to spread around the Internet.