KIEV
Dutch and Malaysian investigators have resumed Thursday the search for the remains of victims of Malaysia Airlines MH17, about nine months after the plane was downed in eastern Ukraine, authorities said.
A Boeing 777 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed after being shot down in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board, two thirds of them Dutch.
The head of the emergency services of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic, Aleksey Kostrubitskiy, told reporters on Thursday that a Dutch-led experts team would search the site of the crash for up to three weeks.
The team of 30 people is looking for the remaining debris of the plane, personal belongings of those killed and for new evidences on the tragedy.
Foreign investigators suspended their operations in the area in November 2014, due to clashes between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatists.
Emergency service workers of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic will also help the investigators, Kostrubitskiy said, adding that the remains of two victims had not yet been found.
He added that Dutch authorities were planning to build a memorial for the victims after the search.
Nationals of the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Philippines, Canada and New Zealand were among the 298 passengers and crew on board.
Days after the Malaysia Airline tragedy last year, Ukraine and the U.S. accused pro-Russian separatists of shooting down the plane, a claim Moscow rejected.
