This week another 10 victims of the MH17 flight disaster in eastern Ukraine have been identified, resulting in a total of 272 identified people now, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte declared on Friday, also expressing his anger about the inaccessibility of the crash site.

A total of 26 victims remains unidentified. During the crash on July 17 a total of 298 people died, of which 196 had the Dutch nationality.

Of the 10 new identifications seven persons had the Dutch nationality. At the request of the embassies of the countries concerned, the specific nationality of the non-Dutch victims was not made known.

On July 23 the first aircraft with remains and bodies of the victims arrived at Eindhoven Airport, followed by several other flights. The coffins were brought to Hilversum, where a team of specialists have the task of identifying the victims. Rutte on Friday emphasized once again that it may take several more months before every victim will be identified.

It is uncertain if remains of all victims are currently in Hilversum. On August 5 the Netherlands stopped the recovery and repatriation mission on the crash site in eastern Ukraine until further notice due to the deteriorating security conditions in the area. Therefore currently no new remains can be found or transported to the Netherlands for identification.

On Thursday the Dutch government wrote in a letter to the parliament that it is still too unsafe to return to the crash site.

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