‘Reparations now’: King and Burnham face protests at Antigua Commonwealth summit

Activists see meeting as opportunity to demand UK confront role in transatlantic enslavement

“The royal family enslaved us! Apologise now! Reparatory justice now!”

King Charles and the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, will be greeted with messages as they travel through Antigua’s capital, St John’s, to attend meetings at the Commonwealth leaders’ summit next week. On billboards, placards and T-shirts, in letters and at a candlelight vigil for the thousands of Africans trafficked to Antigua and Barbuda during the transatlantic slave trade, the message from the Caribbean will be pervasive: slavery reparations is not an issue they “are going to be able to dodge”.