This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Months before her death in a Paris car crash, the striking image of Diana, Princess of Wales, wearing a protective visor and vest and walking through a live Angolan minefield drew global attention to the lethal scourge of landmines.

On Friday, Prince Harry put on similar attire as he helped set off a controlled explosion in a partially cleared Angolan minefield similar to the one visited by his mother 22 years ago.

Near the south-eastern town of Dirico, Harry walked into an area that was once an artillery base for anti-government forces, and who had mined the position in 2000 before retreating.

Praising the work of landmine clearance charity the Halo Trust, Harry called landmines an “unhealed scar of war”, adding: “By clearing the landmines we can help this community find peace, and with peace comes opportunity.

“Additionally, we can protect the diverse and unique wildlife that relies on the beautiful Cuito river that I slept beside last night.”

The prince walked through dusty scrubland marked with signs bearing a skull and crossbones and the warning “Danger, mines” in English and Portuguese.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Harry said clearing Angola’s mines would take ‘an international effort’. Photograph: Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage

Having previously pledged to continue the work of his mother, Harry called for an international effort to clear remaining landmines from the Okavango watershed in the Angolan highlands – a legacy of the country’s civil war that ended in 2002.

“It is fitting that this project starts in Dirico, at the convergence of the two rivers that flow from Angola’s islands down to the Okavango Delta,” he said. “These two rivers provide water and life to over a million people downstream and an essential and incredibly delicate habitat for an abundance of wildlife.

“Just as these rivers extend for miles, so must this project extend far beyond Dirico. Outside the national parks, large parts of this crucial watershed also need to be cleared of landmines.

“Clearing the full watershed will take an international effort. Everyone who recognises the priceless importance of safeguarding Africa’s most intact natural landscape should commit fully to this mission.”

Harry was also visited the former minefield in Huambo, central Angola, where his mother had walked. Today it has been transformed from scrubland into a community with houses, a school and shops. “With the right international support, this land around us here can also be like Huambo – a landmine-free, diverse, dynamic and thriving community,” he added.

His mother’s campaigning and her call for an international ban on the devices during her Angolan visit led to the UK’s junior defence minister Earl Howe calling her “ill-informed” and a “loose cannon that Her Majesty’s government did not need”.

Harry has previously said his mother’s work on banning landmines in the last months of her life “wasn’t universally popular”. And though some believed she had stepped over the line into the arena of political campaigning, “for her this wasn’t about politics; it was about people.”

Three months after her death, 122 countries signed the Ottawa Treaty, which prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines.

More than 120,000 people were killed or injured by landmines between 1999-2017, according to research by Landmine Monitor. Civilians made up 87% of casualties, with nearly half of the victims children.

Camille Wallen, the director of strategy at the Halo Trust, said Harry’s visit helped “remind the world that landmines are not just a thing of the past”.

Speaking at an orthopaedic centre in Huambo, renamed in Diana’s honour, Harry said: “Since my mother’s visit to Huambo many years ago, this city has undergone such a visible transformation. When she visited this centre during the conflict, it was full of men, women and even children injured by landmines.

“I know that if she were here today she would be delighted to see that this centre has grown into a global leader of orthopaedic rehabilitation in the middle of a vibrant and thriving community.”

He added: “It has been an honour to retrace my mother’s steps today, I lost her 22 years ago but the memory of her is with me daily and her legacy lives on, which is why I’m so happy to name this centre, the Princess Diana Orthopaedic Centre.”