LONDON, Sept 17 (AFP) - Prince Harry, who turned 20 this week, says in a documentary about his gap year in Lesotho that he wants to carry on the humanitarian work of his mother, the late Princess Diana.
"The Forgotten Kingdom: Prince Harry In Lesotho," to be broadcast Sunday on Britain's main commercial ITV channel, features his first-ever on-camera interview. Excerpts were released for publication Thursday.
Harry vowed to carry on the legacy of his mother, who was killed in August 1997, a year after her divorce from Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
"I believe I've got a lot of my mother in me, basically, and I think she'd want us to do this, me and my brother" Prince William, he said, referring to his time with AIDS orphans in Lesotho.
Harry, who is hoping to attend Britain's elite Sandhurst military college, spent eight weeks in the southern African country earlier this year during his gap year, or year off, shedding some of his image as a gregarious party animal.
The documentary shows him playing with AIDS orphans and making friends with a four-year-old boy, Mutsu Potsane, at the Mants'ase Children's Home in Mohale's Hoek.
"He was just a really special kid ... No father, no mother, really sweet, a little devil sometimes, but really, really good fun," said Harry.
Although he has not been tested, Mutsu is believed to have either the HIV virus or full-blown AIDS and is unlikely to live past the age of 10. Both Mutsu's parents have died of the illness.
Harry was also filmed cradling a 10-month-old girl named Liketso, in a scene reminiscent of Diana's humanitarian mission to another African nation, Angola, shortly before her death.
The baby had been raped by her mother's boyfriend, and Harry is seen visibly shocked as he discusses her ordeal when he visits a shelter for traumatised children near Lesotho's capital Maseru.
"I always wanted to go to an AIDS country to carry on my mother's legacy as much as I can," Harry said.
"I don't want to take over from her because I never will. I don't think anyone can, but, I want to try to carry it on to make her proud."
He also said that he enjoyed his relative anonymity whilst in Lesotho, where he could get away from the pressure of being a member of the world's best-known royal family.
"The nicest thing out here is they don't know who I am, I'm just a normal guy to them which is really, really nice," he said.
"Okay, I'm very different ... but it's a case of trying to be like them, having a good laugh with them and you should see their faces ... I've taken loads of photographs and they're all so happy."
He added: "I love children, but it's probably because I've got an incredibly immature side to me."
Harry, who turned 20 on Wednesday, is third in line for the British throne occupied by his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, after his father and his brother William, a student at St Andrews University in Scotland.
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