Africa’s new football champions, Zambia’s Chipolopolo, have arrived to a tumultuous heroes’ welcome in the capital, Lusaka.

A BBC correspondent says waiting fans went wild as captain Christopher Katongo came out of the plane clutching the golden Africa Cup of Nations. The Zambian team beat Ivory Coast 8-7 in a dramatic penalty shoot-out late on Sunday night in Gabon.

The win is particularly poignant because 19 years ago Zambia lost its entire team in a plane crash in Gabon.

The BBC’s Mutuna Chanda in Lusaka says the airport road is a sea of green, red, orange and black as thousands of fans line up to catch a glimpse of the players making their way to official celebrations to be held downtown in Lusaka’s showgrounds.

About 1,000 people, some of whom had walked 25km (15 miles), were at the airport to greet the teams.

The event is expected to be attended by former Presidents Rupiah Banda and Kenneth Kaunda, both of whom are huge football fans.

Many Zambians have taken an impromptu day off work to continue celebrating the country’s first ever Africa Cup of Nations victory.

The current victorious squad departed from the same airport in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, where a Zambia air force plane had refuelled on its way to Senegal for a World Cup qualifier in March 1993 – and then crashed shortly after take-off.

Zambia’s players, nicknamed Chipolopolo Boys (the Copper Bullets), paid tribute to the 18 players who died in that crash – dedicating their triumph to them.

“The players who were killed in the plane crash in Gabon was what was behind us and what was driving us through the tournament,” goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene told reporters just before leaving Libreville.

“We did not want to go home empty-handed,” he said.