Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group held an hour's vigil at the cenotaph opposite Rochdale Town Hall on Tuesday 22 June 2010. They were mourning the deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan, including, Richard Hollington aged 23 years, the 300th British soldier to be killed there and the deaths of the thousands of Afghan civilians killed, since the invasion by NATO forces in October 2001. Members of the group read the names of all 300 British troops killed in Afghanistan since NATO's invasion and the names of 300 of the Afghan civilians. They also laid two wreaths, one with the number '300' and one with the name 'Sayed Rahman', a two year old child killed in a US airstrike during the night of April 8/9, 2003 in a village in Paktika Province near the Pakistan border.
The group observed periods of silence for all the dead and called for British troops to be brought home from Afghanistan.
On behalf of the Peace Group, Philip Gilligan said,
"This is a day which we hoped would never come, but while the government continues to send our young men and women to kill and be killed in Afghanistan, it was inevitable that it would arrive. Saturday 26 June 2010 is 'Armed Forces Day' and David Cameron is telling us that we should show greater appreciation for our military. Bringing them home from NATO's disastrous and futile war would be a very good start. We need to remember all the dead and to demand that British troops are allowed to return home to their families. The killing must stop."
