( Irna ) - A British soldier has been killed and another injured in an explosion in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced Tuesday.
The soldiers, from the 36 Engineer Regiment, were said to have been hit by a blast whilst taking part in a routine logistics convoy on Monday, 19 kilometers north-east of the town of Gereshk.
An MoD spokesman said a helicopter had been sent to the scene of the explosion and the two soldiers flown to a medical facility at Camp Bastion, but that one was pronounced dead on arrival.
The second soldier's injuries were not thought to be life-threatening.
The latest fatality death is the fifth so far this month and takes the total number of UK troops killed while on operations in Afghanistan since 2001 to 79.
The number killed this year is 35 compared with 39 for the whole of 2006. The total contrasts with to only five in the first four years of the war.
A further 41 British troops have been killed in Iraq this year out of a total of 169 since the 2003 invasion.