Taking a selfie in a morgue is bad. Taking a smiling selfie at Auschwitz is worse. But taking a selfie while wearing mascara looted from theMH17 crash sitesurely has to be the worst that's emerged from the modern day obsession with our smartphone cameras.
Ukrainian girl Ekaterina Parkhomenko Instagrammed a shot of a tube of mascara a few days ago, captioning it: ‘Mascara from Amsterdam, from the field to be precise, you know what I mean.’ When asked by a commenter if she was serious, she responded that an acquaintance, a looter, had given it to her. She lives in the town of Torez, which is just a few miles from the crash site.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the global attention her Instagram immediately got, Ekaterina deleted the profile. But it's since been reactivated by a hacker, who’s dedicated the page to hate messages directed at the girl.
It's no secret that the MH17 site has been looted extensively – with laptops, phones, cash, clothing and, obviously, cosmetics being stolen. Family members of the victims say that even their phones are being answered by people with heavy Eastern European accents. But, whilst that could be seen as a natural if disturbing consequence of what some in America have called 'an act of war', bragging about it on social media? A step too far, surely…
Follow Fiona on Twitter @nycfiona
Pictures: Instagram
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.