By 3 News online staff
The deaths of Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker, 26, Private Richard Harris, 21, and Corporal Luke Tamatea, 31, yesterday bring the total number of New Zealand casualties in Afghanistan to 10 over the last two years.
One person was killed in 2010, three in 2011 and now six have died this year.
August 2010 - Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell, 28, from Feilding
Lt O'Donnell was New Zealand’s first combat fatality in Afghanistan. He was killed in August 2010, when his three-vehicle patrol was attacked by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades in Bamiyan Province. Two other New Zealand soldiers were injured.
February 2011 - Private Kirifi Mila, 27, from Hamilton
Pte Mila died in February 2011 when the Humvee he was in rolled down a 30m cliff in the village of Ferosak in Bamiyan Province. He was the gunner of the vehicle, so was standing on the turret. Three other soldiers in the vehicle were injured.
August 2011 - SAS Corporal Doug Grant, 41, from Tokomaru
Cpl Grant died on the way to hospital in Kabul in August 2011 after being shot through the arm hole of his body armour after Taliban insurgents stormed a British compound. He had previously served in East Timor, the former Yugoslavia and it was his second deployment in Afghanistan.
September 2011 - SAS Lance Corporal Leon Smith, 33, Wellington
Cpl Smith was killed by a shot to the head in September 2011 in Wardak province, where the SAS were assisting Afghan police to break up a group planning an attack on Kabul. He was an advanced medic and had served in the SAS since 2008.
April 2012 - Corporal Douglas Hughes, 26, Northland
Cpl Hughes died in at the Romero forward patrol base in Bamiyan Province in a non-combat situation. Results of a Defence Force investigation into the cause of death are not yet available. .
August 2012 - Lance Corporal Pralli Durrer, 26, from Christchurch and Lance Corporal Rory Malone, 26, from Auckland.
L/Cpl Durrer and L/Cpl Malone died during an insurgent attack in a small village in Bamiyan Province on August 4. L/Cpl Durrer was in a light armoured vehicle and was killed instantly when the vehicle was fired upon. L/Cpl Malone was injured by a blast or gun fire during the incident and died in a helicopter on the way to hospital. Six others were also injured.
August 2012 - Corporal Luke Tamatea, 31, Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker, 26, and Private Richard Harris, 21.
The trio died on August 19 along with two other coalition troops when the vehicle they were in was hit by an improvised explosive device. The first New Zealand woman to die in combat since the Vietnam War, Cpl Baker was a medic and had been in the New Zealand Army since 2007. Pte Harris had been in the New Zealand Army since February 2009 and Cpl Tamatea had been serving in the Army for 12 years.
3 News