King Charles heads to the Caribbean this week amid increasingly vocal demands from the region for Britain to pay reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.

Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, will first visit the Bahamas and Guyana before travelling to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the biennial gathering of the organisation he heads. The tour runs from October 27 to November 4.

At a 2022 meeting of Commonwealth leaders, representing 56 nations, most of them former British colonies, Charles expressed deep personal sorrow over slavery. The issue is expected to feature prominently again during this visit.

Last month, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a group of 23 member and associate states that includes the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica, said it would push for reparations to be included on the CHOGM agenda.

“The Caribbean has consistently asserted that reparations is fundamentally about justice,” CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett said in a speech last month.

“It is about recognition, accountability and transformation, and about building a just and equitable future for the descendants of those who, as the chattel of colonial owners, endured untold suffering, loss of life and freedom.”

Buckingham Palace has said Charles would not shy away from discussing Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade during the tour. However, he will not formally apologise, as some have demanded, in keeping with British government policy, which also rules out financial reparations.

“It is important to note here the work his majesty himself has done over many years both to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and to find creative ways to right inequalities that endure,” a palace spokesperson said.

Shirley Botchwey, secretary-general of the Commonwealth, which represents around 2.7 billion people, said last week that the time had come for discussions on reparations, whether financial or in other forms, such as the return of artefacts.

Charles remains head of state of several Caribbean nations, including the Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda.

Asked whether the king should apologise, one campaigner told Sky News: “It wouldn't hurt to have that.”

From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were abducted and sold into slavery by European merchants. Britain was responsible for transporting an estimated 3.2 million people, making it the second-largest European participant in the trade after Portugal.