More than 150 UK casualties in a week in Helmand

Recent fighting in Afghanistan led to a record number of British casualties since the start of the war against the Taliban, with more than 150 badly wounded within a week, defence officials said yesterday. The figures are in addition to the 17 soldiers killed this month so far. The latest, the victim of a roadside bomb while on foot patrol near Sangin on Sunday, was Corporal Joey Etchells, 22, from 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. It was his third deployment to Afghanistan. He told his local paper, the Oldham Evening Chronicle, last month: "It's a great job and a big responsibility to have out here, but I really enjoy it. I can't see myself ever wanting to do anything else." His death takes the British toll in Afghanistan since 2001 to 186. More than 157 soldiers were treated at the field hospital at Camp Bastion in Helmand province last week, according to army medics. Numbers were so high that medics have been forced to break their own rules by accepted more wounded than the hospital is designed to take.