The King and Queen landed in Samoa for a four-day visit royal today where Charles is set to be offered the title of ‘head chief’ before a Commonwealth gathering.
The couple were greeted as they stepped off a Royal n Air Force (RAAF) plane at Faleolo Airport in the Polynesian nation at 7pm local time (7am UK time).
Samoa’s prime minister Afioga Fiame Naomi Mataafa was waiting to greet Charles and Camilla after they disembarked their jet for the final leg of their overseas trip.
Camilla wore a pink embroidered tunic top and white Palazzo trousers by Anna Valentine, while Charles had a smart grey 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 lead Charles through a walkway on a mangrove reserve as he aims to highlight the impact of climate change on the Pacific nations and its communities.
Mr Tamapua said: ‘The king tide today is about twice that it was 20, 30 years ago, and that is affecting our land, and it’s eating away at some of the areas that are so hard for us to control, and people (have to) move inwards, inland now.’
The King, who is head of the Commonwealth, will preside for the first time over a gathering of Commonwealth presidents and prime ministers that Samoa is hosting.
He will formally open the event, which Sir Keir Starmer is also attending. Foreign Secretary David Lammy is also in Samoa and waited for the King at the airport.
Earlier, Charles and Camilla ended their six-day tour of and posted a message on social media under their names soon after their RAAF plane took off.
They said: ‘As we head towards Apia, we can’t wait to visit Samoa for the first time together and to experience the warmth of ancient traditions with your remarkable people. Feiloa’i ma le manuia! – Charles R & Camilla R’
The tweet included a few words in Samoan loosely translated as ‘looking forward to meeting the Samoan people’.
Samoa is hosting a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which has the theme ‘One Resilient Common Future’.
The King will formally open the CHOGM, having deputised for Queen Elizabeth II during the last such meeting which was staged by Rwanda in 2022.
It comes after Charles was accused of ‘genocide’ by an n Indigenous senator at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday during the monarch’s six-day visit to which concluded yesterday.
The n royal tour was Charles’ inaugural visit to an overseas realm as sovereign, his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer, and his first visit by a British monarch to in 13 years.
Charles is head of state in , New Zealand and 12 other Commonwealth realms outside the UK, although the role is largely ceremonial.
Over half of the Commonwealth’s members are small states, many of them Pacific island nations facing the threat of rising sea levels.
The leaders at CHOGM are expected to make a declaration on protecting the ocean, with climate change a key topic for discussion.
Charles has spent a lifetime campaigning on environmental issues and in 2020 described climate change as the greatest threat that humanity has faced.
Britain has said it will not bring the issue of reparations for historical transatlantic slavery, demanded by Caribbean countries, to the table at CHOGM, but is open to engage with leaders who want to discuss it.