MH17: 196 bodies found

The local department of Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry in the eastern Donetsk region confirmed Sunday that 196 bodies had been found at the site where the Malaysian airliner crashed. It added that divers were also involved in the search because the area included a reservoir.

"As of 7 a.m. on July 20, in the Shakhtarsky region of the crash site of the Boeing 777, 196 bodies were found," it said in a statement.

It was also reported Sunday by journalists on the scene that the recovered bodies from flight MH17 have been removed from the crash site and into refrigerated rail carriages.

Ukrainian spokeswoman Nataliya Bystro told the AP news agency on Sunday that emergency workers, working under duress, were forced to give the bodies to the armed rebels.

"Where they took the bodies - we don't know," Bystro told AP.

The AFP news agency reported that pro-Russian rebels who had been guarding the crash site also appeared to have left.

Earlier, the Ukraine government said it had reached a "preliminary" deal with pro-Russia separatists - who control the plane crash site - to remove the bodies. The news comes after reports Saturday of how the bodies were decaying in the summer sun, which drew outrage worldwide.

However, the details of that accord, announced by Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroisman, remain unclear.

Flight code retired

Malaysia Airlines on Sunday announced it would retire flight code MH17 as a "mark of respect" to the 298 people killed on board the Boeing 777. Flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, while bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam.

The flight code retirement is the second by the airline in four months.

Flight codes MH370 and MH371 were retired following the March 8 disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 passengers and crew on board. The plane was traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Kyiv blames Russia

On Saturday, the Ukrainian government accused both Russia and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine of destroying evidence to cover up their alleged guilt in the shooting down of the Boeing 777 airliner.

The government in Kyiv said it had "compelling evidence" that a Russian SA-11 radar-guided missile battery was brought across the border from Russia and manned by Russian citizens. The Ukraine government said the truck-mounted system was driven back over the border after the attack.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, calling on him to exert influence on the rebels to allow investigators access to the site.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also spoke with Putin on Saturday - half of the victims on the plane were Dutch citizens. Afterwards Rutte said, "I told him, "Time is running out for you to show the world that you have good intentions, that you will take responsibility'."

World leaders have called on the rebels to give international investigators unfettered access to the site. Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the area have said their work was hampered again by armed men at the crash site.

hc/tj (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)