London - A 21-year-old British soldier shot dead by terrorists in Northern Ireland was given an emotional farewell by his family and army superiors in London Friday.

Patrick Azimkar was one of two British soldiers mowed down with more than 60 shots outside the British Army's Massereene barracks near Belfast on March 7.

The Real IRA, a splinter group of the now disbanded Irish Republican Army, claimed responsibility for the killing, which marked a sudden and widely-condemned return of terrorist violence to Northern Ireland, more than a decade after the signing of a peace agreement.

His colleague, 23-year-old Mark Quinsey, was laid to rest in his home city of Birmingham earlier this week. Both men were due to fly out for deployment in Afghanistan on the night they died. (dpa)