16.3 |
Military fatalities and the bereaved
1.
Between 2003
and 2009, 178 British Service Personnel and one Ministry of
Defence
(MOD)
civilian lost their lives serving on Operation
TELIC.1
A breakdown
of those
fatalities
by year is shown in the table below.
2.
This Section
addresses:
•
the
preparations made for repatriating the bodies of those who lost
their lives
on Op
TELIC, and for investigating their deaths;
•
changes to
military investigative processes and to the civilian inquest
process;
•
the support
offered to the next of kin and bereaved families; and
•
how the
Government honoured those who lost their lives.
3.
This Section
does not consider other UK citizens who also lost their lives in
Iraq, in a
variety of
different roles and as the result of hostage‑taking.
4.
The provision
of welfare support for Service Personnel is addressed in Section
16.1.
5.
The provision
of medical care, in particular for seriously injured personnel, and
the
support
provided to their families, is addressed in Section
16.2.
6.
The problems
caused by deployments consistently exceeding the Defence
Planning
Assumptions
in respect of the provision of military equipment are addressed
in
Sections 6.3
and 14.
7.
The decision
to deploy to Helmand province in Afghanistan, and the implications
of
that
decision, are addressed in Section 9.
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Total
Fatalities
53
22
23
29
47
4
1
179
1
GOV.UK, 12
December 2012, British
Fatalities: Operations in Iraq.
77