A lost bag belonging to a soldier serving in Afghanistan has turned up - but most of the contents are missing.

Last week we reported how 19-year-old Private Chris Staras, from Stanhope, Ashford, suffered the loss of a bag on a flight from Gatwick to Cyprus on August 10. He then flew from Cyprus to the Helmand Province where he is serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment and is tasked with clearing landmines.

On Saturday morning Pte Staras’s father Luke made a daily call to Thomson, the airline Pte Staras was travelling with when the bag went missing almost a month before. A member of the customer services team discovered the missing bag - but minus all the valuables.

The new laptop, army equipment, medical kit had all be taken as had a St Christopher which belonged to Pte Staras’s greatgrandfather.

“The box the St Christopher was in was still there so someone had obviously gone though and taken out all valuables,” Pte Staras’s mother Tricia said.

Another St Christopher and a button which had been on the uniforms worn by Pte Staras’s greatgrandfather during two world wars was still in the bag.