William and Kate visit aid centre

Nov 2 2011

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit Copenhagen as they take part in their first joint humanitarian mission.

William and Kate are travelling to the Danish capital to support Unicef's East Africa appeal and will tour the organisation's emergency supply centre to view the effort to distribute food and medical supplies to East Africa.

They will be accompanied by the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark at the supply centre before moving on to view a British Airways Boeing 747 loaded with 45 tonnes of aid supplies before it leaves for the stricken region.

It is the Duke and Duchess's third official engagement as a married couple since their wedding in April and the East Africa cause is one which is sure to be close to their hearts.

The couple became engaged during a visit to Lake Rutundu in Mount Kenya last year and in 2001 William spent more than three months of his gap year learning about Africa's wildlife and environment while visiting a number of countries.

His father, the Prince of Wales, will also undertake a visit to the area this week as he visits South Africa before moving on to Tanzania.

Severe food shortages in East Africa are affecting more than 13 million people and the royal party hopes to maintain global attention on the crisis, which is worsening with more areas expected to be declared as "in famine" over the next few months.

Unicef's emergency supply centre in Copenhagen is a worldwide co-ordination centre for nutrition and other emergency supplies reaching children in crisis around the world.

Elhadj As Sy, Unicef's regional chief of Eastern and Southern Africa, said: "Right now, Unicef, along with many other partners, is working tirelessly to ensure that children's lives can be saved across East Africa.

"Every day children are being given food and water thanks to the huge generosity of the public all around the world. But there is so much more to be done. As we speak, more than 320,000 children are in grave danger and need life-saving emergency supplies, like those being shipped and airlifted from our warehouse."