Bodies reach Kharkiv, truce called at MH17 crash site in Ukraine

A train carrying the remains of 280 people killed in the Malaysian plane disaster was finally allowed to leave a rebel-held region in eastern Ukraine as the separatists declared a truce on Tuesday around the crash site. Five days after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed, senior separatist leader Aleksander Borodai handed over the black boxes to Malaysian experts in the city of Donetsk. ‘The devices, which record cockpit activity and flight data, were handed to Malaysian officials by the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Borodai, in front of scores of journalists’, a senior member of Malaysian delegation said. Borodai said ‘We will order a ceasefire in an area of 10 kilometres around’ the site of the Malaysian Airlines plane crash which killed all 298 on board, he said. Earlier, the rebels released the bodies of the dead. Loaded on a train, the bodies arrived in the government-controlled city of Kharkiv on Tuesday morning. The bodies will be put on a plane to the Netherlands, where the flight to Kuala Lumpur originated and which suffered the greatest loss, with 193 citizens killed in the crash, report agencies.