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News

Prince William and Prince Harry visit Lesotho

16th June 2010

Prince Harry was greeted like African royalty today, during a visit to a remote village to highlight the desperate plight of local "herd boys".

The 25-year-old was given the respect usually afforded the ruling family and allowed to ride into the mountain settlement in Lesotho yesterday escorted by locals on ponies and welcomed by ululating women.

Prince Harry was dressed in a traditional tribal blanket and a beanie hat for the mile-long journey on a bay pony through the village of Semongkong as shepherd boys bounced in unison along the route.

He was later joined by his older brother, Prince William, who travelled to the region so he could learn about the young men who grow up abused, uneducated and destined to contract Aids.

They can spend months or even years living among Lesotho's snow-capped peaks tending livestock, but as young and isolated individuals they are vulnerable to sexual and financial exploitation.

With little protection against the elements, many die in lightning strikes.

Some suffer sexual abuse from other herd boys and face a constant battle against rustlers and rivals seeking the best grazing ground.

When they return to their villages as adults, many are so feral that they reportedly run amok, raping and pillaging.

In an effort to help the herd boys, Sentebale - a charity co-founded by Prince Harry to help disadvantaged Lesotho young people - has opened schools, teaching them how to read and write and giving them social skills and health education to avoid Aids and other diseases.

It has becomes one of Sentebale's priorities.

"It's the main thing to do," said Prince Harry.

"They're herd boys from aged eight to 18, then they come back at 18 with no education, no social skills."

Prince Harry and Lesotho's Prince Seeiso, with whom he co-founded Sentebale, spent much of the day visiting schools which the charity has built or supported for village children and nomadic shepherd boys.

They were joined later by Prince William, who was keen to find out the problems facing children in Lesotho, where 23 per cent of adults among a population of 1.9 million are HIV-positive and average life expectancy is 34.

In Semongkong, which nestles between snow-capped mountains 8,000ft up in the remotest part of Lesotho - a nation within South Africa – the brothers met herd boys as young as eight who walk miles to attend night school after spending their days tending sheep and cattle.

Mojafa Makepe, 20, has been a herd boy since he was eight and thinks he will be doing the job for most of his life for a salary of one sheep per month and one cow per year, in freezing temperatures.

"Sometimes I am away from the village for a year, staying near the cattle post on the top of the mountains," he said.

"It's cold, there are dogs that bite you and sometimes we fight over grazing land. One of the biggest dangers is stock theft by armed rustlers."

Prince William and Prince Harry talked to many of the herd boys, listening to their stories, dancing to their songs, and giving them presents of warm hats.

Prince Harry gave one delighted boy a torch to help him walk nine miles across the mountains to school in pitch black at night.

Julius Matsoso Majoso, 32, a former herd boy who now teaches at one of the night schools, said: "I have been a shepherd boy and saw how I was treated by the farmers.

"I felt compassion when I saw that the herd boys didn't know how to read and write or even count their sheep and cattle."

He was thrilled to see three princes – Prince William, Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso – at his school, which has no heating and relies on oil lamps for light.

"They care for other people," he said.

"They are really shepherds because shepherds are the people who really take care of other things. So it means they are really Kings."