Prince Harry retraces Princess Diana’s steps with walk through Angola minefield
Like mother, like prince.
Britain’s Prince Harry retraced his late mother Princess Diana’s famous footsteps of more than 20 years ago as he wore body armor to walk Friday through a cleared minefield in Angola.
Queen Elizabeth’s grandson and sixth in line to the throne walked through a dusty path marked with skull-and-crossbones warning signs — visiting the spot where Diana was photographed in Huambo during her own Africa visit in 1997.
The princess was drawing attention to the more than one million landmines planted during Angola’s 27-year civil war, which ended in 2002.
Just months later, she was killed in a car crash in Paris, when Harry was 12.
“Land mines are an unhealed scar of war,” the royal said in the town of Dirico., where he detonated a mine from a distance. “By clearing the land mines we can help this community find peace, and with peace comes opportunity.”
Speaking about Huambo, he added: “Once heavily mined, the second city of Angola is now safe.
“With the right international support, this land around us here can also be like Huambo – a landmine-free, diverse, dynamic and thriving community connected to and benefiting from all that it has to offer,” he said, according to the Telegraph.
More than 1,600 people have been wounded by landmines in Angola between the start of the war in 1975 and 2015, according to British charity Halo Trust, AFP reported.
Harry’s visit to Angola is part of a southern African journey by him, his wife Meghan and their 4-month-old son Archie.
With Post wires
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