The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Baton Relay arrived in Uganda on Saturday, as part of the African leg of the tour.
The next edition of the Games itself is being hosted by the city of Gold Coast, Queensland, in Australia in April 2018.
After a number of festivities, the Queen’s Baton is departing Uganda on Thursday.
It visited the Gems International School in Butabika, and then moved to the Uganda Olympic Committee offices in Kampala.
The Baton left on its tour from Buckingham Palace in London and the first destination was Sierra Leone. It also stopped in Akwaaba in Ghana and Kigali in Rwanda.
On the Ghanaian section of the relay, the Baton visited the Presidential Palace and the Theodosia Okoh Hockey Stadium in Accra.
Schoolchildren in Accra had a chance to carry the baton, while Commonwealth Games badminton competitor Stella Amasah and boxing world champion Azumah Nelson also were given the honour.
Symbolically, the Baton was taken to Elmina Castle, now a national monument, which serves to remind tourists of the brutality of the slave-trade. Many indigenous people died there, tortured by their Portuguese captors.
In Rwanda, the Baton passed through the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which pays tribute to the victims of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s.
Street celebrations lightened proceedings on the route from Kigali’s Convention Centre to the Petit Stade Stadium, with many of the country’s sports personalities in attendance.
The Baton will move on to Cameroon and then Nigeria on April 1. It will then travel to Kenya.
The route travelled subsequent to that will be through Tanzania, Seychelles, Mauritius, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and on to South Africa.
African News Agency