Prince Harry 'Irritated' Over Nations Ignoring Landmines

Has 'bee in his bonnet' about mine-supplying nations not being mine-clearing nations
By Ruth Brown,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 18, 2013 2:54 PM CDT
Prince Harry 'Irritated' Over Nations Ignoring Landmines
Britain's Prince Harry, left, is given a tour around the current mine clearance site by HALO’s provincial manager Tony Jose Antonio in Angola.   (AP Photo/HALO Trust)

Prince Harry is "irritated" that nations responsible for supplying landmines aren't doing more to help clear them, according to the head of a British mine-clearing charity. The prince reportedly expressed these sentiments after visiting Angola to witness the work of the Halo Trust first-hand, the BBC reports. His mother, Princess Diana, was also a champion of Halo and its landmine clearing efforts, and Harry is following in her careful footsteps by becoming the charity's new patron.

"He is irritated about the countries that supplied these landmines are not actually putting in any funds to clear them 25 years later," says Halo's chief executive Guy Willoughby. "He has got quite a bee in his bonnet about that, and that is good." When Diana visited Angola, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, in 1997, she was accused of being a "loose cannon" for calling for an international ban on mines, Sky News reports. Whether Harry will face the same scrutiny for calling out other countries in 2013 is still unclear, says Willoughby. "Whether by nailing his colours to the mast he [will] court the same criticism as his mother did, I guess we'll have to wait and see," he says. (More Prince Harry stories.)

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