British soldier killed by explosion in Helmand province
serviceman is 97th to die this year
Published:
A BRITISH soldier from 33 Engineer Regiment was killed in an explosion in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday.
The serviceman died in the blast near Gereshk, in Helmand province on Sunday afternoon. His next of kin have been told.
Spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, said: “His courage and the sacrifice made by him in the fight against improvised explosive devices will not be forgotten.”
His death takes the British death toll in Afghanistan so far this year to 97.
A second British serviceman, from 7th Battalion The Rifles, attached to the 3rd Battalion The Rifles Battle Group, died on Sunday morning from small arms fire. He was killed while on patrol near Sangin in Helmand.
The news came as the mother of a young soldier fought back tears yesterday as his body returned to Britain. Coline Bassett watched as the coffin of her son Samuel, 20, was driven through the streets of Wootton Bassett, in Wiltshire.
The bodies of Rifleman Bassett, of 4th Battalion The Rifles, and Philip Allen, of 2nd Battalion, returned to RAF Lyneham before being driven through the market town.
Hundreds of people including relatives, friends, and British Legion members lined the streets to watch the cortege pause briefly at the war memorial.
Strewn with flowers, the cars carrying Rifleman Bassett, of Plymouth, and Rifleman Allen, of Dorset, then drove to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.
Also in the crowd yesterday was Rifleman Bassett’s uncle, Pete Bassett, who said the young man had tried to reassure relatives that he would be safe while serving.
Mr Bassett, 41, from Plymouth, said: “The Army made him a man, made him a someone, not a nobody. I saw him the day before he went out to Afghanistan.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t die’.
“Then I dropped him off back at his mum’s.”
Friends of Rifleman Allen also wept as his coffin paused before them, many sobbing in each other’s arms.
