Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood has described the number of UK military and civilians suffering serious injury in Afghanistan as “shocking.”
Figures show the number of ‘very seriously injured or seriously injured’ on operations in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2009 surpassed 300. This was nearly double the amount of the casualties sustained during the eight previous years combined. In 2001, when Afghanistan was first invaded by coalition forces, no military personnel or civilians from the UK were recorded as being very seriously or seriously wounded on operation there that year.
Figures gleaned on the number of amputations carried out on armed forces personnel serving in Afghanistan were also highlighted by Ms Wood.
The figures showed that between 2009 and 2010, the number of “surviving UK Service personnel” having a “traumatic or surgical amputation, partial or complete, for either upper or lower limbs” rose by 40% from 55 in 2009 to 79 last year. Of the 79 people undergoing amputations last year, 39 were identified as “significant multiple amputees.”
The information, obtained through the Defence Analytical Services and Advice (DASA) website, showed the amputations have risen almost every year since 2006 when there were just seven.
Ms Wood, who campaigned with the anti-war movement to oppose the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, said:
“The number of people killed in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last ten years is alarming but these figures only tell part of the story of the horror of war. For every person killed, there are many others who have been seriously injured or maimed as these figures from Afghanistan prove.
“Whenever a soldier from the UK is killed, it is usually headline news. However, whenever somebody gets seriously injured it is very rarely reported. Last year alone there were shockingly three people every week, on average, working for the armed forces that sustained serious or very serious injury in Afghanistan.
“The number of serious or very serious injured people are on course to be lower by the end of this year but the number of these casualties sustained between January and the end of July is still very high at 47.
“There are too many forgotten casualties of war and this is the case for civilians as well as combatants.”
Ms Wood added:
“From the very beginning Plaid Cymru has opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have also campaigned for better support to be given to ex-soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health disorders.
“Not only have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq proved to be very costly to human life but also to the finances of the UK. I am of the view that this shows just how wrong the mainstream political parties in the UK were to support interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan – a mistake they compounded by not having any clear exit strategy in either case.”
