Anne to visit Sri Lanka in first royal overseas tour of 2024
The Princess Royal will travel to the capital Colombo and two other cities next week at the request of the Foreign Office.
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Your support makes all the difference.The Princess Royal is to make an official visit to Sri Lanka next week to mark 75 years of diplomatic relations between the UK and the South Asian island.
The King’s sister Anne, joined by her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, is carrying out the three-day royal trip at the request of the Foreign Office.
The princess, 73, has been dubbed the King’s “right-hand woman” thanks to her support for her brother, and her reputation as one of the most hard-working royals in Charles’s slimmed-down monarchy.
The trip will be the royal family’s first overseas tour of 2024.
The King and Queen are expected to visit Canada in May, and Australia, New Zealand and Samoa in October.
There was no major joint official overseas tour for the Prince and Princess of Wales in 2023, but the pair are reported to be planning to travel to Italy for an official visit this spring.
Anne will undertake engagements and meet local communities and faith groups in the capital Colombo, the city of Kandy in the centre of Sri Lanka, and Jaffna on the northern tip of the country from January 10 to 12, Buckingham Palace said.
The princess will also meet Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe during her stay.
Mr Wickremesinghe’s predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country and resigned in 2022 following months of mass protests over the island’s economic crisis.
Anne last visited Sri Lanka nearly 30 years ago in 1995 as patron of Save the Children to see projects supported by the charity.
The King and Queen, as the then-Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, travelled there in 2013 for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
Charles carried out solo trips in 2005 in the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and in 1998 to mark 50 years of the diplomatic relationship between the UK and the republic.
Anne recently appeared in the BBC’s royal documentary Charles III: The Coronation Year, and was filmed greeting her brother affectionately with the words “Hello, old bean” to the delight of the King.
The late Queen’s only daughter told how she “felt a sense of relief” when the Imperial State Crown was removed from her mother’s coffin, symbolising her role as monarch passing to Charles.
“I rather weirdly felt a sense of relief, somehow that’s it, finished. That responsibility being moved on,” Anne said.
The princess also praised Camilla for her “outstanding” understanding of her job as consort, saying the role was “not something she would have been a natural for”, but adding that “she does it really well”.
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