Harry and Meghan arrive in Middle East for summit on refugees’ needs

2 hours agoThomas Mackintosh

PA Media

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have arrived in the Middle East for their first international trip together in 18 months.

Prince Harry and Meghan will spend two days visiting Jordan to highlight efforts to support vulnerable communities affected by conflict and displacement.

The couple, who stepped down as working royals in 2020, have travelled to Amman at the invitation of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Their visit comes at time of crisis for the Royal Family following the arrest of Harry’s uncle, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Harry and Meghan arrived on Wednesday morning and were warmly greeted by Ghebreyesus on the steps of WHO’s country office in Amman.

Once inside, the couple joined a roundtable discussion hosted by the WHO with individuals from leading bodies including the United Nations and many of its agencies, diplomatic representatives, and donors.

Over the next two days, Harry and Meghan are expected to meet Jordanian leaders and senior health officials.

They are expected to engage with WHO teams, visit front line health and mental health programmes and meet World Central Kitchen staff who are co-ordinating food relief for Gaza from Amman.

Philip Hall, British Ambassador to Jordan, thanked the Sussexes for travelling to the Middle East.

“Your visit, your support, your appreciation of the efforts that the United Nations, including of course, the World Health Organization, the government of Jordan and others, are making here is enormously appreciated,” Hall said.

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The Sussexes will also visit the social development organisation Questscope’s youth centre to hear from young people participating in creative and wellbeing programmes.

They are expected to see initiatives they have helped fund to medically evacuate children from the war in Gaza to the Middle East nation.

In September, Prince Harry’s Archewell Foundation announced it would donate $500,000 (£370,000) to projects – including the WHO – to help develop prosthetic limbs and provide other support for children from Gaza and Ukraine.

The foundation’s three grants included $200,000 (£148,000) to the WHO to support medical evacuations from Gaza to Jordan, and $150,000 (£111,000) to the Save the Children charity to provide humanitarian support in Gaza.

The third grant of $150,000 was to the Centre of Blast Injury Studies to help its efforts to develop prostheses that can support injured children, particularly those injured from the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

The couple first partnered with the WHO on a global campaign to encourage vaccine equity and co-hosted a high-level event at the UN General Assembly in 2021, and their charitable body has also worked with the organisation on its global initiative to help end violence against children.

Since moving to California in 2020 for a new life the Sussexes have carried out a number of foreign visits that have taken a similar form to the official trips they made when still part of the Royal Family.

The couple’s last tour – a four-day trip to Colombia in August 2024 – saw them visit a school in capital Bogotá to talk to teenagers about the impact of social media.

Harry and Meghan also spoke at a summit on digital responsibility staged in part by their Archewell Foundation.

Earlier that year, the couple visited Nigeria to mark 10 years of the Invictus Games.

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