British Prince Harry will land in Kathmandu on Saturday on his five-day official tour of Nepal.

The visit is being undertaken at the request of Her Majesty’s Government and coincides with the bicentenary of bilateral relations between Nepal and the United Kingdom.

This will be the first time the 32-year-old will be visiting Nepal, and the trip will see him follow in the footsteps of his father Prince Charles and his grandparents the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, who have all carried out official visits to Nepal. The last visit to Nepal was carried out by Prince Philip in 2000. Prince Harry’s trip will be the first official tour of Nepal since Nepal became a republic in 2008.

During his five-day official visit, the British prince is scheduled to meet high-level government officials, including Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, visit earthquake-affected areas, attend social events and travel to some tourist destinations, according to his travel itinerary provided by the British Embassy in Kathmandu. He will also visit the quake-hit heritage sites in Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts.

Kensington Palace on Wednesday said on its Twitter account: “Over the course of the tour HRH will meet those affected by the earthquakes & see the efforts being undertaken to rebuild the impacted areas.”

Earthquakes last year killed nearly 9,000 people, injured more than 20,000 and rendered hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

On Friday, a day before Prince Harry’s official visit to Nepal, ex-armies of the British Gurkha regiment staged a protest in front of the British Embassy in Lainchaur against the tradition of recruiting Nepali soldiers in the British Army. Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen’s Organi-sation (Gaeso) organised the protest during which the organisation submitted a memorandum to UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron through the embassy to stop the “illegal” recruitment without any agreement between the two countries.

Royal engagements