2014-07-24 15:54:00

Calls for UN-Backed Force in Ukraine's crash site


(Vatican Radio) The Netherlands and Australia will ask United Nations backing for an international force to protect those investigating a site in eastern Ukraine where a Malaysian passenger plane was shot down last Thursday. Nearly 300 people were killed, 194 of them were Dutch nationals. 

Listen to the report by Stefan Bos..

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his nation sent dozens of police to London ahead of possible deployment  in Ukraine, to secure the Malaysian plane crash site as part of a U.N.-backed team. 

"I can report that the Australian government has pre-deployed some 50 Australian police to London.We are ready to deploy Australian police to Ukraine to help secure the site as part of an international team, under United Nations authority," he said. 

The Netherlands and Australia are preparing a United Nations resolution to authorize an international force. 

Abbott also announced that Australian and Dutch foreign ministers were in Kiev to seek support from Ukraine's government for the plan. "We will seek a memorandum of understanding with the Ukraine to allow international police to work to secure the site.

VICTIMS ARRIVE 

News of the possible deployment came while two planeloads carrying scores of victims arrived in the Netherlands Thursday, after the first 40 bodies were brought home Wednesday, a day of national mourning.      

A special prayer service, called united in sorrow, was held at St. Joris Church in the Dutch central city of Amersfoort. Most of the victims were Dutch nationals. 

Elsewhere former American President Bill Clinton paid tribute to AIDS researchers and campaigners who were among those who perished aboard flight MH17, including Dutch expert Dr.Joep Lange. 

"He [Dr.Lange] and the five other colleagues we lost lived lives which are overpowering in their contribution to a shared future," Clinton told an AIDS summit in Melbourne. 

CHILDREN'S PROMISE

"It is important in this group that devotes its life to giving other people life, that we honor the services and lives of the lives of those who were lost. And the promise of the children that was cut short," he said, his voice trembling. Clinton told a global AIDS summit in Australia that the world must take a firm stand against those responsible for downing the plane.

Pro-Russian rebels, who have been blamed for the disaster by the West, appeared undeterred. They shot down two Ukrainian fighter jets Wednesday over the same region where the commercial jetliner crashed. 

The United States and European Union have accused Russia of supporting the separatists with heavy weapons and training, charges Moscow denies. Amid the tensions, Poland announced Thursday that it had decided to call off the 'Polish Year in Russia' and the 'Russian Year' in Poland, planned for 2015. 








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