The identification of the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 is proceeding ‘relatively quickly’ and all the DNA profiles should be processed by August 20, national police chief Gerard Bouman told parliament on Monday evening.

He was speaking during a special briefing to parliament on the current situation with regard to the Boeing 777 which crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board, including 196 Dutch nationals.

Bouman thinks most of the human remains and personal belongings at the crash site have now been returned to the Netherlands.

Locals

The area has been searched not only by the special forensic team made up of Dutch, Australian and Malaysian experts, but also by around 800 local people.

The locals have handed in anything they found, either to the forensic team or to the Ukrainian authorities.

The repatriation mission was discontinued last Wednesday because of fighting around the site between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian rebels and the build up of Russian forces on the border.

Winter

Armed forces chief Tom Middendorp told parliament he hopes the mission will be restarted before the winter. In the meantime, a small team of experts remains in Kiev and in the eastern town of Charkov. They will receive any additional finds by locals at the scene and return them to the Netherlands.

Visit

Earlier on Monday, prime minister Mark Rutte discussed the situation around the crash site with Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, who was on a flying visit to the Netherlands.

Both men hope the forensic experts will be able to return to eastern Ukraine in the near future. ‘We are determined to have a new mission to the site to finish “operation bring them home”,’ Abbott told a press conference.