Investigators using sniffer dogs recovered more human remains and personal belongings at the Malaysia Airlines wreckage site in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, the head of an international recovery mission said. Speaking from the Ukrainian capital Kiev, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said 70 Dutch and Australian investigators were able to reach the site for the second consecutive day, despite clashes between pro-Russia separatist rebels and Ukrainian forces nearby.
Aalbersberg said his team had been able to search a greater area on Saturday, despite hearing sounds of mortar fire in the distance as they worked. Aalbersberg did not give details of the remains recovered. His team is searching for decomposing remains of approximately 80 victims spread over an area of 8 square miles — a process expected to take weeks. Remains are being transferred by refrigerated truck to a facility in Kharkiv, where they can be examined by Dutch, Malaysian and Australian forensic experts. They will then be sent on to the Netherlands, to join more than 200 bodies that were collected and are now being painstakingly identified.
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— The Associated Press