(Abuja) Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle visited Nigeria on Friday as part of the promotion of the Invictus Games, the sporting event that the prince founded for war veterans.
Posted at 9:57 a.m.
The couple arrived in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on Friday, where they visited a school to launch an event on youth mental health.
Greeted by a group of Igbo dancers and drummers, Prince Harry and Meghan visited Lightway Academy, where they were greeted by students.
“If you only take one thing from today, it’s that mental health affects everyone,” Prince Harry told students. “The more we talk about it, the more we can reduce the stigma.”
PHOTO SUNDAY ALAMBA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Meghan and Harry speak with students at Lightway Academy on May 10 in Abuja.
Meghan joined the Duke of Sussex on stage before heading off to a meeting with military officials to discuss the Invictus Games.
Nigeria became a member of the games in 2022.
The next games will take place in February 2025 in Vancouver, Canada.
” It was very cool. I just wanted to touch him,” student Nnena Edeh, 13, told AFP, who said she was “inspired” by the encounter as the prince left school.
Prince Harry was in London on Wednesday to mark the 10e anniversary of the games. Like all of his trips to the UK since moving to the US in 2020, his visit has sparked further speculation about a reconciliation with his family.
Harry, a former army captain who served as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, founded the Invictus Games in 2014. They have since grown, promoting the reintegration of war veterans through sport.
Last year, former Nigerian soldier Peacemaker Azuegbulam, who lost a leg fighting Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, became the first African to win a gold medal at the games in Germany.
The Nigerian army said on Thursday that the prince would participate in a sporting event in the capital and would also travel to Kaduna, in the northwest of the country, to visit a military hospital and speak with soldiers injured in the fight.
He will then travel to Lagos, the economic and cultural capital of the country.
The Nigerian armed forces are fighting armed groups on several fronts.
A jihadist insurgency has raged since 2009 in the northeast of the country and has left more than 40,000 dead and 2 million displaced.
In the northwestern and central states, heavily armed criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, carry out mass kidnappings for ransom, attack and pillage villages.
