Ukraine's prime minister said Monday that 272 bodies have been recovered from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and that 251 of the bodies are being stored in refrigerator train cars at a nearby station.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters that the cars are ready to depart for Amsterdam, but rebel gunmen haven't let them leave the Torez train station, according to comments released on a state media Twitter page.
A total of 298 people are believed to have died in the disaster, which saw the airliner crash into rural eastern Ukraine after apparently being hit with a surface-to-air missile.
The Ukrainian government and a rebel group that controls the region have each blamed the other side for downing the plane.
Yatsenyuk, speaking in Kiev, also said that 31 international experts landed at Kharkiv Airport in the country's east on Monday morning to conduct an investigation of the crash site.
An earlier report on Monday by Ukraine's Emergency Situations Ministry said that 251 bodies and 66 various body parts were found at the site, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
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