Dutch authorities probing the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 said today it was "unrealistic" to send armed troops to secure the crash site, after 13 people including two children were killed in fierce fighting in insurgent-held east Ukraine.
The Netherlands and Australia had planned to send armed officers to ensure that investigators are able to carry out their work at the vast crash site. But Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte now said this is no longer viable.
"Getting the military upper hand for an international mission in this area is according to our conclusion not realistic," Rutte told journalists in The Hague, noting the presence of heavily armed separatists and the proximity of the border with Russia -- accused of backing the rebels.
Even an unarmed team of Dutch and Australian officers was forced to drop their plans to visit the site today as heavy bombardments rocked towns close to the site, where some remains of the 298 victims from the plane still lie decomposing under the summer sun.
"There is fighting going on. We can't take the risk," said Alexander Hug, deputy chief monitor of the European security body OSCE's special mission in Ukraine.
"The security situation on the way to the site and on the site itself is unacceptable for our unarmed observer mission," he told reporters in the insurgent stronghold Donetsk, the biggest city in the region.
An AFP photographer heard artillery bombardments just a kilometre (half a mile) from the rebel-held town of Grabove, next to the crash site, and saw black smoke billowing into the sky.
Terrified local residents were fleeing and checkpoints controlled by separatist fighters were abandoned.
Earlier, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had said 49 officers from the Netherlands and Australia -- which together lost some 221 citizens in the crash -- were due at the scene today and that there would be "considerably more on site in coming days".
