Britain's Ireland veterans among 83,000 still suffering combat effects, says 'shocking new report'

TENS OF THOUSANDS of British soldiers are still suffering mentally and physically as a result of wars over the last 25 years around the world – including the North of Ireland – according to “shocking new research” by the British forces charity Help for Heroes with King's College London.

As many as 83,000 former military personnel who saw combat in war zones from Iraq and Afghanistan to Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Ireland since 1991 are suffering from the trauma and physical effects of active service.

And academic researchers called for better records to be kept of the numbers of personnel who served and who were wounded because there are “major statistics gaps”.

Astonishingly, the Ministry of Defence insisted it had no idea how many troops in total were deployed to the North of Ireland over the 30 years of the conflict here.

The Counting the Costs study reports that 9 in 10 of the 83,000 troops affected are likely to have mental issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

A further 1 in 10 have been left with physical injuries as a result of their service, while 2%were left to cope with both.

Researchers found up to 57,000 partners and children have developed mental health issues as a result.

Professor Neil Greenberg of King's College told the Sun newspaper:

“More work needs to be done by the Ministry of Defence to count these figures and then make them more available to the public.

“It is very hard for the Government to know how to address the problem if they don't know the scale of it, and don't even know how many are at risk.

“Every country must be able to know the human cost of the wars it wants to fight.”