Bodies of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 victims were allowed to rot in the summer heat before they were piled into garbage trucks, as pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine played their sickening stall game.
Families of the dead, Dutch lawmakers and international observers were outraged that victims — likely shot out of the sky by Moscow-backed separatists last week — are still nowhere close to being returned to loved ones.
The overwhelming stench of the dead has overtaken the rebel-controlled village of Grabovo, where much of the plane and its victims came crashing to earth on Thursday.
Bodies were strewn across fields where they sat under mid-80s heat until the weekend, observers said.
International outrage reached a boiling point Monday after pictures emerged showing Flight MH17 victims in body bags being tossed into garbage trucks before they were hauled away to a refrigerated train — on which the cooling system had broken down or was turned off.
“It’s hard one to swallow — that’s my uncle and everyone else’s loved ones are there and they are being degraded and treated inhumanely,” 22-year-old Jordan Winters — whose uncle Glenn Thomas, 49, was aboard the doomed jet — told The Daily Mail.
“They deserve a lot more respect than that. All we want now is my uncle back. I’m sure every other family who’s been involved in this tragedy, that’s all they want.”
Thomas’ twin sister Tracey Withers is so consumed by grief, she’d even welcome the return of anything her brother brought on board Flight MH17.
“We just want them to show some compassion and let people in to try and get the bodies back and the personal possessions,” she said.
“We’re just hoping we’ve got personal possessions that can be brought back, anything that was Glenn’s — even a pen, a letter, a book — anything that resembles what Glenn would have had.”
The strike took the lives of 298 passengers, which included 193 Dutch citizens.
“No words can describe it,” said Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose son Bryce and his gal pal Daisy Oehlers were aboard the Amsterdam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight.
“Bodies are just lying there for three days in the hot sun. There are people who have this on their conscience. There are families who can never hold the body of a child or a mother.”
Officials at The Hague begged rebels to get the bodies moving toward a Ukrainian-controlled region so the Dutch military could transport the remains home.
“If the train finally gets going and the bodies get to Ukraine-controlled territory, then we would prefer — and a Hercules [transport aircraft] is ready at Kharkiv airport — to get the bodies back to the Netherlands as soon as possible,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
Louis Bontes, a right-wing Dutch lawmaker, urged his government to take decisive action — and have special Dutch forces forcibly take the bodies and secure the crash site.
“This messing around with our people can go on no longer,” he said. “Our people must be brought home now.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused grieving relatives and their backers of seeking “selfish political goals” by demanding humane treatment of the dead.
He said the rebels are working as fast as they can to process the victims.
“In the meantime, nobody should and has no right to use this tragedy to achieve their narrowly selfish political goals,” Putin said Sunday.
The Russian strongman pretended Moscow has had nothing to do with the conflict in Ukraine and cynically called for fighting to end.
“We repeatedly called upon all conflicting sides to stop the bloodshed immediately and sit down at the negotiating table,” he said.
The UN Security Council will vote Monday on an Australian resolution calling for international access to the crash site and a ceasefire around that area.
If Russia uses its veto power, that will show how Moscow is in cahoots with rebels, according to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
“This is still an absolutely shambolic situation. It does look more like a garden cleanup than a forensic investigation,” he said.
“Given the almost certain culpability of the Russian-backed rebels in the downing of the aircraft, having these people in control of the site is a little like leaving criminals in control of a crime scene.”