MOSCOW - Twenty three of the 39 people killed in the early morning blast in the Moscow Metro on Feb. 6 have been identified, and their relatives can claim their bodies from city morgues beginning from Monday, Feb. 9, said Moscow Deputy Prosecutor Vladimir Yudin.

At this moment, 23 bodies have been identified, while identification of the remaining victims is under progress and their bodies will be handed over to relatives as soon as they are identified, he added. “Unfortunately, there are so many body fragments and this complicates the process of identification. However, the work of identifying the rest will be carried through to the end,” Yudin said in a statement carried by Interfax.

He noted that nobody in the law-enforcement agencies has any doubt the blast was a terror act executed by a suicide bomber — either by tying the explosive to his/her body or by detonating the explosive in a bag or a box . “The on-going investigation will reveal the actual mechanism used in the blast,” he added.