MH17 – the absence of bodies, valuables and diplomacy
Four days after the downing of flight MH17 this remains the biggest crime scene in the world, with the suspected criminals in charge of guarding it.
That is one of the many astonishing facts about this unspeakable tragedy. Today has been a story of glaring absences. First there is the absence of the dozens of bodies that littered the fields where they fell since Thursday until the early hours of this morning.
They have been spirited away in black body bags, loaded onto cattle trucks with not even a modicum of decorum or dignity. Then driven to a nearby railway siding where they were loaded onto refrigerator carriages and taken to an undisclosed location.
Rumour has it that the deceased passengers of flight MH17 are now being stored in mortuaries in the city of Donetsk. But when a BBC colleague tried to get confirmation of this at the Donetsk hospital morgue, he was arrested and interrogated for three hours.
The other glaring absence is the absence of valuables. I had heard reports of looting but I had not seen any with my own eyes. But I have come across envelopes, packages, computer bags, camera bags and wallets that all have been carefully opened (not by an explosion, but by hand) and left empty.
I put this to a group of miners who are helping in the recovery operation and they said that they too had seen people take belongings from the wreckage and make off with them in haste.
Evidence of looting. Envelope ripped open by hands not blast. Empty MH17 pic.twitter.com/TpRgc6lYmA
— Matt Frei (@mattfrei) July 20, 2014
The third glaring absence of this tragedy is the absence of the international community and its various institutions, four days after the event. Apart from a group of OSCE monitors whose life has been made very complicated by the pro-Russian rebels I have not come across a single diplomat or representative from any of the countries affected like Holland, Germany, Britain, Australian, or Malaysia,
Given the fact that the international community is pumping billions of dollars and euros into the stricken Ukrainian economy, and given the fact that President Poroshenko wants to cosy up to the EU, why are his troops still fighting 30 km from here and thus giving the international community an excuse not to turn up?
Why are the muscular voices in London, Washington or Berlin, who have been calling on Vladimir Putin to rein in his troops, not doing more in order to keep him to his word?
And why is Vladimir Putin himself still dancing on the side-lines of ambiguity? Perhaps he is afraid that if he manages to calm down his proxies in eastern Ukraine everyone will say that he is in control of them after all.
The global diplomatic vacuum surrounding this tragedy is complemented by the procedural chaos on the ground. Meanwhile 300 families are waiting for two things that so far have been in pitifully short supply.
Dignity and justice.