Australia’s foreign minister ‘sickened’ by video of Ukraine rebels at MH17 crash site

Australia’s top diplomat yesterday said she was “sickened” after new footage emerged allegedly of Russian-backed rebels rummaging through the luggage of passengers killed after Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, as a ceremony marked the disaster’s one-year anniversary.

The video was obtained by Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and published exactly a year after the Malaysia Airlines plane was blown out of the sky during a routine flight between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur.

All 298 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 777 were killed, the majority of them Dutch, but with 38 Australian citizens and residents among them.

“It is sickening to watch and 12 months on from the downing of MH17 it is deeply concerning that this footage has emerged now,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the Nine Network, without being able to verify the authenticity of the video.

“It is certainly consistent with the intelligence advice that we received 12 months ago, that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile,” she added.