BuzzFeed saw monitors from the OSCE, a security agency with observer status in the east Ukraine conflict, inspect three large gray railway cars at the train station in Torez on Saturday morning. Heavily armed, well-trained rebels opened the doors, letting off a foul stench of decomposition inside. It was unclear whether the refrigeration was working.

Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesperson for the monitoring mission, said that they had seen bodies in body bags inside the wagons, but had no way of telling where they were from or how many there were. Personnel were “not allowed in without special equipment” due to the stage of decomposition the bodies were in after lying in a field in 85-degree heat for three days, Bociurkiw added. “The stench is very very bad,” he said.

Ukraine’s emergency ministry told the Associated Press that rebels forced emergency workers to remove 196 bodies from the site overnight, but did not know where they had been taken. An aide to the prime minister of the self-proclaimed rebel Donetsk People’s Republic told BuzzFeed that same number were being transported to the railway wagons.