The King and Queen landed in Samoa today for a four-day royal visit, where Charles will be offered the title of “head honcho” ahead of a Commonwealth meeting.
The couple were greeted as they stepped off a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) plane at Faleolo Airport in the Polynesian nation at 7pm local time (7am UK time).
Samoa Afioga Fiame Prime Minister Naomi Mataafa was waiting to greet Charles and Camilla after they disembarked their plane for the final leg of their trip abroad.
Camilla wore an embroidered pink tunic and white palazzo pants by Anna Valentine, while Charles wore a smart gray suit with a blue tie and handkerchief.
Lenatai Victor Tamapua, a Samoan chief and member of parliament, plans to offer the king the title of ‘Tui Taumeasina’ or high chief during a traditional welcome.
He will later guide Charles through a trail in a mangrove reserve as he aims to highlight the impact of climate change on Pacific nations and their communities.
Mr Tamapua said: “The king tide today is about double what it was 20 or 30 years ago, and that is affecting our land, and it is eating away at some of the areas that we find so difficult to control, and people (have to) move inland, inland now.’
The King, who is the head of the Commonwealth, will chair for the first time a meeting of presidents and prime ministers of the Commonwealth that Samoa hosts.
He will formally open the event, which will also be attended by Sir Keir Starmer. Foreign Secretary David Lammy is also in Samoa and waited for the King at the airport.
Earlier, Charles and Camilla wrapped up their six-day tour of Australia and posted a message on social media under their names shortly after their RAAF plane took off.
They said: ‘As we head towards Apia, we are looking forward to visiting Samoa together for the first time and experiencing the warmth of the ancient traditions with its extraordinary people. Feiloa’i ma le manuia! – Charles R and Camilla R’
The tweet included some Samoan words loosely translated as “looking forward to meeting the Samoan people.”
Samoa is hosting a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) themed ‘A Resilient Common Future’.
The King will formally open the CHOGM, having stood in for Queen Elizabeth II during the last such meeting hosted by Rwanda in 2022.
It comes after Charles was accused of “genocide” by an indigenous Australian senator in Parliament in Canberra on Monday during the monarch’s six-day visit to Australia which concluded yesterday.
The Australian royal tour was Charles’s maiden visit to an overseas kingdom as sovereign, his first major overseas trip since being diagnosed with cancer and the first visit by a British monarch to Australia in 13 years.
Charles is head of state in Australia, New Zealand and 12 other Commonwealth realms outside the United Kingdom, although the role is largely ceremonial.
More than half of the Commonwealth’s members are small states, many of them Pacific island nations facing the threat of rising sea levels.
CHOGM leaders are expected to make a statement on ocean protection, with climate change a key topic of discussion.
Charles has spent his entire life campaigning on environmental issues and in 2020 described climate change as the biggest threat humanity has ever faced.
Britain has said it will not bring to the CHOGM table the issue of reparations for historic transatlantic slavery, demanded by Caribbean countries, but is open to dialogue with leaders who want to discuss it.
