Harry, Meghan and baby Archie meet former archbishop Tutu on Africa tour

[September 25, 2019] CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Harry, his wife Meghan and their four-month-old son Archie received a warm welcome on Wednesday in Cape Town from retired archbishop Desmond Tutu on the third day of their African tour.

Video footage showed Archie, on his first royal engagement, sitting on his mother's lap while his father chatted with the 87-year-old Tutu, a veteran of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The family met Tutu and his daughter Thandeka at the Old Granary, one of the oldest buildings in Cape Town, where the cleric's charitable foundation is based.

Ahead of Wednesday's visit, Tutu and his wife, Leah, said they viewed their chance to meet the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as a "rare privilege and honour".

Tutu, who as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town used the pulpit to preach against the injustices of white minority rule during the apartheid era, has battled prostate cancer for years and has largely withdrawn from public life.

The Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation aims to preserve the archbishop's legacy by contributing to the development of youth and leadership skills.

A small group of excited well-wishers waited in searing heat to catch a glimpse of the royals arriving at the Old Granary. One elderly woman collapsed and had to be moved to the shade where bystanders and police officials helped her.

On Tuesday, Harry and Meghan danced with a group of mentors who teach vulnerable youngsters from townships to swim and surf, before visiting South Africa's oldest mosque in the mainly Muslim suburb of Bo-Kaap.

Harry, Queen Elizabeth's grandson and sixth in line to the British throne, has been visiting southern Africa for two decades for holidays and conservation work.

He will travel alone on Thursday to Botswana, where he and Meghan holidayed shortly after they began dating in July 2016 and returned to in 2017 for a romantic getaway.

Harry then heads to Angola, visiting the landmine clearance project where famous photographs of his late mother, Princess Diana, were taken during her campaign to ban landmines.

He ends the solo section of his tour in Malawi, where he will meet President Peter Mutharika.

(Reporting by Wendell Roelf; editing by Gareth Jones)

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