New Footage of MH17 Crash Site ‘Sickening to Watch’

Canberra (PNA/Xinhua) — On the one-year anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, new footage has emerged of unidentified persons sifting through the luggage of dead passengers at the Ukraine crash site.

The video, exclusively obtained by Australian media outlet News Corp on Friday, shows foot armed personnel expressing their shock that the plane, still smoldering on the ground, was indeed a passenger jet.

The Boeing 777 jet crashed over eastern Ukraine last year, with all 298 passengers, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, on board.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has labeled the footage as “sickening to watch” and said it was “deeply concerning” that the footage was only released one year on from the disaster.

“It is certainly consistent with the intelligence advice that we received 12 months ago, that Malaysian airlines flight MH17 had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile,” Bishop told the Nine Network on Friday.

The footage has been dubbed with English subtitles and shows a luggage belonging to an Australian victim.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the new footage put beyond any doubt that the downing was not an accident, rather a deliberate “atrocity” against a defenseless passenger plane.

“It highlights the fact that this was an atrocity, it was in no way an accident,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.

Bishop said the legitimacy of the video was still being determined; however the vision is “consistent” with the joint investigation to this point.

“I can’t verify the authenticity of (the video), but I’m assuming it is a part of the Dutch Safety Board investigations,” she said.

She said a joint investigation was due to release its final report later in the year, adding that “these things take time.”

She acknowledged that it was important to bring those responsible to justice.

“That’s why Australia and four other countries that make up the joint investigation task force are calling for the UN Security Council to back the establishment of an international criminal tribunal so that those who are responsible for this atrocity can be brought to justice.”

Earlier this week, Bishop called on the UN to form the independent tribunal, as it would bring a sense of “justice for the victims and their loved ones.”

The news comes on the day of an MH17 commemoration, to be held in Canberra, where a permanent memorial, including a plaque inscribed with the victims’ names, will be unveiled in the gardens of Parliament House. (PNA/Xinhua) JBP/PJN