KHARKIV, Ukraine - A Dutch military plane loaded with coffins left the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv for the Netherlands on Wednesday, the first in a long series of flights to repatriate the bodies of 298 passengers and crew killed last week when a missile downed a Malaysia Airlines jet.
At a ceremony before the departure of the Hercules plane on the sun-swept tarmac of Kharkiv International Airport, Ukrainian officials and foreign diplomats mixed solemn tributes to the dead with angry demands that those responsible for the shooting down of the jet be found and bought to justice.
'This is a tragedy of unspeakable proportions,' an Australian representative, Angus Houston, told the gathering, flanked by a Ukrainian military honor guard dressed in black uniforms.
'Those who are guilty for this terrorist act will be punished,' the Ukrainian vice prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, said. 'We are today sending off innocents who were killed.'
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Military officers carried four coffins into the plane, which took off at noon bound for the Netherlands with 16 bodies on board. A second plane from Australia was due to take 34 more bodies later on Wednesday.
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