Bodies due home tonight, attack survivors on the mend

NZ soldiers in Afghanistan pay their last respects to Pralli Durrer and Rory Malone. Photo / NZ Defence Force

Five of the soldiers wounded during a gun battle in Afghanistan at the weekend which killed two New Zealanders are recovering in Germany.

Lance Corporal Pralli Durrer and Lance Corporal Rory Malone, both 26, were killed when their patrols went to the aid of ambushed Afghan police in Bamiyan province on Saturday night.

A further six New Zealanders were injured.

Five of them were moved to Landstuhl Regional Military Centre in Germany and the other, who was seriously injured, remains in Afghanistan receiving treatment for gunshot wounds to the abdomen.

"His condition, while serious, has been described as stable," Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Rhys Jones said.

One of the men had chest surgery at Homburg University Hospital and would be transferred back to Landstuhl Hospital as soon as possible, General Jones said.

Another would have surgery to repair a fractured femur, while a third was on crutches in the hospital ward.

Two of the other survivors, who suffered shrapnel wounds, had been discharged from hospital and were in accommodation on base, the Defence Force chief said.

Earlier reports suggested one of the men had been shot in the neck, but an update from the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan said this was not the case.

The bodies of Lance Corporal Durrer and Lance Corporal Malone are due home tonight.