Meghan Markle makes surprise visit to Uvalde memorial

Duchess of Sussex paid tribute to the victims of the Uvalde school mass shooting

Meghan Markle made an unexpected whistle-stop visit to the Uvalde memorial, paying tribute to victims of a primary school shooting that occurred in Texas on Tuesday May 24. 

The Duchess of Sussex was pictured laying a bunch of white roses tied in a pink ribbon by a cross for 9-year-old Uziyah Garcia at the memorial site outside the Uvalde County Courthouse.

The shooting, by 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos, at Robb Elementary School, resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers. 

A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told Harper's Bazaar that Meghan felt compelled to visit “in a personal capacity as a mother, to offer her condolences and support in person to a community experiencing unimaginable grief”.

The 40-year-old mother-of-two, arrived with a solitary bodyguard wearing a casual grey t-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap and kept a low-profile as she paid her respects.

She went on to the community centre, which was hosting a blood drive, where local residents were arriving to give blood in order to help ease the burden on depleted hospital resources in the wake of the shooting. While she was there Meghan is understood to have dropped off two crates of drinks and snacks and helped to disperse them among the crowd. 

Community volunteer Gloria Contreras told Buzzfeed News that: "I had no idea who she was. She just was carrying on a conversation like her and I knew each other for years." 

We were just talking about, you know, the situation and what happened, what we were doing here. I told her about us giving out water to the people and feeding them."

Meanwhile another volunteer, Georjean Burnell, 46 told Buzzfeed: "She was just really sweet...She just kind of walked in with her [security] crew and started putting ice waters in the bucket with us and laying out chips for the people who were needing snacks before and after donating."

"It's funny, we didn't even know it was her until after she left and now we're so sad. I mean, to be honest, we thought she was our neighbour."