Prime Minister David Cameron’s historic visit to Jamaica seem to be experiencing a funny twist as he is being confronted with calls to apologise and pay financial reparation for Britain's role in the historic slave trade in the Caribbean.

The demands from campaigners have threatened to overshadow the PM's visit to the island, where he was announcing 25 million pounds in British aid for a new Jamaican prison.

The country's PM Portia Simpson-Miller said she had raised the issue in talks.

Mr Cameron ruled out paying reparation, saying it was "not the right approach".

He said his visit - the first by a British prime minister in 14 years - was to "reinvigorate" ties between the countries, and he wanted to concentrate on future relations not centuries-old issues.

Ms Simpson-Miller said while she was "aware of the obvious sensitivities", Jamaica was "involved in a process under the auspices of the Caribbean Community to engage the UK on the matter".

For more than 200 years Britain was at the heart of a lucrative transatlantic trade in millions of enslaved Africans.

According to ship records it is estimated about 12.5 million people were transported as slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean - to work in often brutal conditions on plantations - from the 16th century until the trade was banned in 1807.