MOSCOW/KIEV - The Ukrainian government accused Russian-backed rebels of "trying to destroy evidence" and continuing to hinder the investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, with international teams aiming for greater access on Sunday.
The government said in a statement that the "terrorists" had taken bodies from the crash site in eastern Ukraine to a morgue in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, "where the 'experts' with Russian accents claimed they intend to perform autopsies."
In addition to tampering with bodies, Kiev said the armed separatists were trying to move remnants of the aircraft to Russia in order to cover-up their "international crime."
World leaders have called on the rebels to give international investigators unfettered access to the site, where the United States says MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 passengers and crew aboard the Boeing 777-200 bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam.
As part of its probe into the disaster that killed 193 of its citizens, the Netherlands dispatched Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans and a 15-member team to Kiev.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at a press conference that images of the rebels foraging through victims' possessions was "disgusting" and that the bodies must be recovered immediately.
In one of a series of telephone calls Saturday among international leaders, Rutte demanded Russian President Vladimir Putin exert his influence over the separatists.
"I told him, 'Time is running out for you to show the world that you have good intentions, that you will take responsibility,'" Rutte said, according to DutchNews.nl.
Mementos placed at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 are pictured near the settlement of Rozspyne in the Donetsk region. (Reuters photo)
Some 130 doctors, military troops and aviation experts from Malaysia arrived in Ukraine and are expected to be at the site Sunday.
Interpol said it was deploying a team to help identify remains.
A group of international monitors, who are not aviation experts, were prevented for a second day by the rebels from having unfettered access to the scene.
"Our movements are being quite controlled at the moment," Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), told reporters at the scene.
Bociurkiw said the team of observers were "getting more access" Saturday, after being allowed only 75 minutes Friday at the debris field.
He said the OSCE had no evidence to support Ukraine's allegation that bodies had been removed from the site. Rebels are "moving the bodies at least to the side of the road," Bociurkiw said.
Later, the monitors said they planned to go back Sunday, security conditions permitting, in hopes of expanding the three-hour window of access that rebels allowed them Saturday.
Duty-free bags and liquor bottles from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport could by seen scattered among the corpses and scorched wreckage, he said.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said people aboard the aircraft cannot be laid to rest because their bodies have yet be properly retrieved.
"Their lives were taken by violence; now violence stops them being accorded their final respect. This cannot continue," he said, noting that he would be flying to Kiev.
Emergency services said early Saturday that 186 bodies were recovered and that some 170 workers were at the scene. The search for the other victims' remains was complicated by the fact that the wreckage was scattered over 25 square kilometres.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said hundreds of rooms have been reserved at a hotel in Kharkiv for relatives of the victims, and that translators and psychologists were present.
Malaysia Airlines released the names Saturday of people aboard the doomed jetliner, raising the count of Dutch citizens to 193. The manifest for flight MH17 included 43 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, 10 from Britain, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos, one Canadian and one New Zealander.
United States President Barack Obama said their deaths were "an outrage of unspeakable proportions" and called Friday on Moscow, pro-Russian separatists and Kiev to adhere to a ceasefire to allow an investigation.
Obama did not say whether Washington believes the civilian plane was intentionally targeted or was mistakenly assumed to be a Ukrainian military aircraft. He stopped short of directly blaming the rebels.
In an overnight call between Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the two leaders "emphasized that Russia bears a clear responsibility to deny separatists in eastern Ukraine continued access to heavy weapons," the White House said.
Merkel later spoke with Putin, pressing him to exert influence on the rebels to allow investigators access to the site, the government in Berlin said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and French President Francois Hollande warned against any attempt to thwart the investigation into plane's downing. In a telephone call the two leaders emphasised the importance of establishing the "indisputable facts" of the tragedy, Elysee Palace said in a statement.
"In that regard, any hindrance of the work of (the International Civil Aviation Organisation) investigators or OSCE observers cannot be tolerated," the statement said, calling for the investigation to begin "without delay."
Amid confusion over what happened to the plane's so-called black boxes, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said international aviation rules demanded that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders return to Malaysia.
Najib said Saturday that his step-grandmother was among those who perished.
"I personally share the grief of the families of those on board MH17," he tweeted after meeting some family members of the 44 Malaysians on the downed flight.
Malaysia Airlines defends flight over Ukraine war zone
Malaysia Airlines insisted that it did not make a mistake in flying over a war zone.
"For Malaysia Airlines, our threat analysis said it is safe," Malaysia Airlines Director of Operation Izham Ismail said at a press conference. "We didn't make a mistake."
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said at the same press conference that based on information the government had received, the plane was shot down.
Malaysia Airlines, which is still reeling from the disappearance March 8 of MH370, came under criticism for using the route that some airlines had avoided.
"Safety is paramount to us. Those routes were validated and ascertained that they are safe," Ismail said, adding the route was approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Malaysia Airlines said Friday it will avoid using the route for future flights.
Liow said a Malaysian search and rescue team has arrived in Kiev but has still not been allowed access to the rebel-controlled area where the plane came down.