‘She gave a voice to the forgotten landmine victims’

THE man who accompanied Princess Diana on her last-ever overseas visit has recalled the enduring impact she had on him and the survivors of landmines.

Ken Rutherford – who co-founded the Landmine Survivors Network – spent three days with the Princess just weeks before her tragic death.

They visited landmine survivors in Bosnia and, 25 years later, he still remembers their time together as if it were yesterday.

Ken, 60, said: “I met Princess Diana straight off the plane in Sarajevo on August 8 and thought, ‘She’s the real deal’.

“Up until this time, people had said they were going to help us. They were happy to lend a name or attend a gala dinner, but she was the first to say, ‘I want to go to Bosnia with you. I want to be there’.

“Her last overseas trip was three days in a war-torn country.

“It was a seminal moment for the Bosnian people.

“She was ready to go. We had told her, ‘Don’t bring any dresses, this is going to be a working trip with no galas. We are going to roll up our sleeves and leave with dirt beneath our fingernails’.

“We had a tremendous trip.”

The charity had organised a pre-dinner meeting with 17 Bosnian landmine survivors. Princess Diana was the only woman in the room.

Ken – now a professor of international law at James

Madison University in Virginia, USA – recalled: “Princess Diana listened to their stories and challenges of overcoming their injuries.

“She reached out not only emotionally, but physically – holding their hands, caressing their faces. She was doing whatever she could in non-verbal language to ease their pain and suffering.”

The following day, they travelled to Zenica to watch the Bosnian disabled volleyball team.

Ken said: “After the match, Diana got up from the bench. She walked right over to the players and talked and listened to them.”

And he spoke of her interactions with the children of the survivors she met along the way.

“She had a humour that softened the situation,” he said. “She held the children, she put them in her arms.

“There was a disabled girl on the last day – she picked her up and held her. This was a little girl who nobody touched. It was the only time I saw that girl smile.

“Diana used her determination to give voice to hundreds of thousands of landmine survivors who didn’t have a voice at that time.”

CHAMPION Diana with Ken in Sarajevo shortly before her tragic death