Prince Harry walks through minefield in Angola, continuing Diana’s advocacy

Prince Harry on Wednesday walked through a minefield in Angola, harkening back to Princess Diana’s historic land mine walk 28 years ago. 

The Duke of Sussex visited Angola in southern Africa with the HALO Trust organization, the same group his late mother worked with when she went to Angola in January 1997, seven months before she was killed in a car crash in Paris.

Diana’s advocacy, along with images of her walking through a minefield, helped mobilize support for a land mine ban treaty that was ratified later that year. 

Harry walked through a land mine field near a village in Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola that has been cleared by HALO Trust. He had visited the same area in 2013 when mines were still active, the charity said. 

It wasn’t the first minefield in Angola Harry has walked through. He also donned the blue body armor of the HALO Trust in a field of land mines for an awareness campaign in 2019.

Harry spoke to families on Wednesday who live near the minefield. 

“Children should never have to live in fear of playing outside or walking to school,” he said. “Here in Angola, over three decades later, the remnants of war still threaten lives every day.”

The land mines across Angola were left behind from its 27-year civil war from 1975 to 2002. The HALO Trust says at least 60,000 people have been killed or injured by land mines since 2008. It says it has located and destroyed over 120,000 land mines and 100,000 other explosive devices in Angola since it started work in the country in 1994, but 1,000 minefields still need to be cleared.