A BRITISH soldier has been killed by an elephant while on counter-poaching operations in Malawi, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced.

Guardsman Mathew Talbot, a 22-year-old from Birmingham, died on Sunday in what the department said was a “tragic incident.”

The soldier was in Malawi with the 1st battalion Coldstream Guards on his first operational deployment since he joined the army in 2013.