Britain's Prince Harry was hit in the face with a camera in a scuffle with photographers outside a London nightclub in the early hours of Thursday, royal officials said.

The 20-year-old prince, third in line to the British throne, also cut a photographer's lip when pushing a camera away during the incident outside the Pangaea club in London's West End at about 0300 BST (0200 GMT), said Clarence House, the office of Harry's father Prince Charles.

"Prince Harry was hit in the face by a camera as photographers crowded around him as he was getting into a car," a royal spokesman said. Harry's injuries are not thought to be serious.

"In pushing the camera away, it's understood that a photographer's lip was cut," he said.

In an interview broadcast in September, Harry said he and his elder brother William tried to lead a normal life, a task made "very difficult" by the media spotlight they live under.

Harry, the younger son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, spent part of the past year working with AIDS orphans in the southern African country of Lesotho and plans to enter Sandhurst military academy next year.

Source: Xinhua