International monitors arrive in Torez to inspect wagons accompanied by convoy of heavily armed and nervous rebels

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The bodies of the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 are being loaded on to three railway carriages, apparently with refrigerator capability, which are standing at the train station in the town of Torez, several miles from the crash site in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

The Guardian witnessed the arrival of a delegation from the international monitoring body the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) at around midday local time to inspect the wagons, accompanied by a convoy of heavily armed and nervous rebels.

As they opened the metal door to one of the carriages to inspect the interior, a stench of death wafted out, and black body bags were visible inside.

"The special monitoring mission in its third day dealing with the incident has now monitored the location where bodies are being refrigerated in three wagons," said Alexander Hug, the deputy chief of the mission.

"We have not been able to count them as that would be too difficult in this situation."

Alexander Hug, deputy chief monitor of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine, talks to a Russia-backed separatist commander during a visit to MH17 flight crash site in the village of Grabovo, east Ukraine. Photograph: Petr Shelomovskiy/Demotix/Corbis

Michael Bociurkiw, the spokesman for the mission, added: "Going inside the wagons is impossible without special equipment. The stench is very, very bad."

The OSCE, which has had its access to the crash site itself limited in recent days, left in a convoy to return to the crash site.

There have been no international investigators at the scene. Ukrainian authorities say they are setting up facilities for relatives to stay and autopsies in the city of Kharkiv, about 200 miles away.

Armed separatists at the scene refused to say how many bodies were in the train carriages or when they would leave. The train driver told the Guardian he had no idea of the train's destination.

The local department of Ukraine's emergencies ministry in the eastern Donetsk region said on Sunday that 196 bodies had been found at the site where the Malaysian airliner crashed.

"As of 7am on 20 July, in the Shakhtarsky region of the crash site of the Boeing 777, 196 bodies were found," it said in a statement, adding that divers were involved in the search because the area included a reservoir.

An OSCE investigator during a visit to the MH17 flight crash site in the village of Grabovo, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Petr Shelomovskiy/ Petr Shelomovskiy/Demotix/Corbis

It also emerged on Sunday that the UN security council was considering a draft resolution to condemn the "shooting down" of a Malaysian passenger plane in Ukraine, demand armed groups grant access to the crash site, and call on states in the region to cooperate with an international investigation.

Australia – which lost 28 citizens – circulated a draft text, seen by Reuters, to the 15-member security council late on Saturday, and diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it could be put to a vote as early as Monday.

The draft resolution "demands that those responsible for this incident be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability".

It "condemns in the strongest terms the shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 … resulting in the tragic loss of 298 lives" and "demands that all states and other actors in the region refrain from acts of violence directed against civilian aircraft."

The US and other powers have said the plane was probably brought down on Thursday by a surface-to-air missile fired from rebel territory.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said on Friday that Washington could not rule out Russian help in firing the missile.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, urged the pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine to cooperate and insisted that an international investigation must not leap to conclusions. Moscow denies involvement and has pointed the finger at Kiev's military.

Ukraine and its western allies accuse Moscow of fuelling a pro-Russia uprising that threatens to break up the former Soviet republic of 46 million people. Russia denies orchestrating the unrest and says Ukraine's attempts to end it by military force are making the situation worse.

The draft UN resolution "calls on all states and actors in the region to cooperate fully in relation to the international investigation of the incident, including with respect to immediate access to the crash site".

It "demands that the armed groups in control of the crash site and the surrounding area refrain from any actions that may compromise the integrity of the crash site and immediately provide safe, secure, full and unfettered access to the site and surrounding area".

The OSCE said on Saturday it had been allowed to see more of the crash site, though gunmen stopped them approaching some of the wreckage.

Russia's UN mission declined to comment on the draft security council resolution.