Dutch expert praises Ukraine body recovery teams

[Bob Of Burleson]

NBCnews.com

HRABOVE, Ukraine - The head of a Dutch team sent to identify the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 praised the Ukrainian recovery workers who collected hundreds of bodies from fields in a war zone for doing a "hell of a job."

Peter van Vliet, leader of a three-man team of Dutch body identification experts - the first international investigators to visit the crash area - said his priority would be getting hundreds of bodies now stored in refrigerated rail cars to a location where they can be identified and sent home.

Despite reports that some of the bodies may have been looted during days lying out in summer sun, van Vliet expressed admiration for the recovery crews. "I'm very impressed about the work that was done over here," he said. Citing the heat and the scale of the site, he said: "I think they did a hell of a job in a hell of a place."

Asked how he felt as a Dutchman at a site where so many of his countrymen were killed, he said he had goosebumps despite the heat. Passengers from the Netherlands accounted for two-thirds of the 298 victims of Thursday's disaster.

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