Prince Harry to continue Diana’s work to clear Angola of landmines
The Duke of Sussex will attend a Chatham House discussion about mine clearance in an African country visited by his mother Diana, Princess of Wales a few months before her death.
Diana famously walked through a minefield cleared by the Halo Trust in Angola to highlight the plight of those maimed by military munitions.
The princess never saw her work to help outlaw landmines come to fruition as she died before the international treaty to ban the military weapons was signed in 1997, a few months after she was killed in a Paris car crash.
Harry will join a panel of experts in central London taking part in the Chatham House Africa Programme seminar, Connecting Conservation, Sustainable Development and Mine Action, staged in partnership with the Halo Trust.
The duke will hear a call to action from the Angolan environment minister Paula Coelho ahead of his and Meghan's tour of Africa later this year.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will themselves visit Angola as part of the tour.
The visit will inevitably be a huge security risk for Harry and Meghan but palace officials are determined that it will go ahead, as ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship explains.
Angola has some of the world’s most important remaining wildernesses including the tributary system for the Okavango Delta.
But the presence of landmines and the remnants of the civil war make large areas of the country unsafe for animals and local people whose livelihoods depend on the natural environment.
Harry has already championed the efforts of his mother, visiting Angola in 2013 to support the work to clear landmines, and before leaving the event will give a short speech.
Diana was famously pictured wearing a visor and detonated a mine in front of a number international reporters.
She also helped to focus attention on the issue sitting with Sandra Tigica – who was 13-years-old at the time and had one of her legs blown off by a mine.