The mother of missing Corrie McKeague has insisted “we’re still looking for Corrie” – after the father of the RAF airman said his remains are “essentially irretrievable”.

Nicola Urquhart posted a video on Saturday evening to the many Facebook followers who have been rooting for the family to find Corrie, who went missing almost two years ago in Bury St Edmunds.

In the video, she said: “We’re still looking for Corrie. Corrie is missing.

“The police don’t know. They cannot categorically state Corrie is in a particular area but they just can’t get him.”

Ms Urquhart was also critical of the comments made by Corrie’s father Martin McKeague, who wrote a lengthy Facebook post just days before saying his won was “no longer missing”.

Corrie’s father said he believed his son was “somewhere in the Suffolk waste disposal system”.

Corrie, who was based at RAF Honington, was 23 when he was last seen walking through Bury St Edmunds on September 24 2016 after a night out with friends.

His disappearance led to a thorough police investigation and far-reaching appeal – including a £100,000 reward for information issued by Suffolk millionaire businessman Colin Davey.

The theory that the airman climbed into a bin and was transported to a waste site led police to conduct two searches of a landfill at Mlton, near Cambridge, last year – lasting 27 weeks in total.

Mrs Urquhart said she felt Corrie’s father wanted to “close this investigation down” and “prevent us getting answers”.

“Nobody has the right to stop [Corrie’s brothers] or me, from doing what we feel we need to do to get answers for Corrie,” she added.

She said the recent comments about Corrie being “no longer missing” had resulted in her family receiving upsetting messages online.

“It’s caused distress and heartache,” she said,

Ms Urquhart said she had not wanted to speak out about her concerns but “we feel that we’ve had no choice but to respond”.

She said she was concerned that the family’s supporters in the Find Corrie Facebook group may have wrongly assumed that “we’ve given up”.

“I might still need your support,” she added.