Updated 15.23
The bodies of some of the first victims recovered from downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 have returned to the Netherlands from the crash site in eastern Ukraine.
Two military aircraft - one Dutch and the other Australian - left Kharkiv Airport in northeastern Ukraine earlier carrying the bodies of 40 victims between them in wooden coffins.
They have now arrived at Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands, where they will be met by relatives, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and members of the Dutch royal family.
Reporter Ian Woods, at Eindhoven Airport, said "The coffins will be carried off the planes by military personnel and each one put in a hearse. Around 1,000 relatives will be watching from behind a screen, including members of two British families, even though they don't know if their loved ones are on board the planes".
The coffins will be taken in convoy, to Hollandsche Rading Barracks for the formal identification process to start. This process may take up to several weeks.
A national day of mourning has been declared in the Netherlands for the 298 people killed, 193 of whom were Dutch, and will include a silent march in Amsterdam this evening.
A minute silence was held before a motorcade took the bodies to the military barracks in Hilversum, where the long process of identifying the remains, aided by a team of police officers, begins.
While bells rang out across the Netherlands for five minutes ahead of the arrival of the two planes.
Bodies remain at the scene
The Dutch Prime Minister has warned it could take weeks or even months. The bodies are the first of some 200 victims which are expected to be flown out of Ukraine during the course of this week.
It is thought more than 80 bodies still remain at the scene.
However, Australia's prime minister Tony Abbott has cast doubt over the numbers that have been recovered and handed over by pro-Russian separatists and warned it is unclear how many bodies may have arrived in Kharkiv - and been left behind.
"It's quite possible that many bodies are still out there in the open, in the European summer, subject to interference and subject to the ravages of heat and animals" he said.
Journalist Bas Heijne told Newstalk Lunchtime the Dutch government itself has come under fire.
Meanwhile, the black boxes from MH17 have now arrived in the UK, where they will be examined at the headquarters of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Farnborough, Hampshire.
Investigators say it will take 24 hours to download the data from each machine before sending it to the Dutch for analysis.
