Lungu Flies To Zimbabwe For Mugabe’s Funeral

The funeral took place at the 60,000 seat Zimbabwe National Stadium, but perhaps fittingly the stadium was only filled to a third of its capacity. The guests included Zimbabwe's military and civilian leadership, a small group of foreign dignitaries, and members of the Mugabe family paid their formal farewell to Mugabe at a five-hour ceremony on Saturday.

In a somewhat awkward address President Emmerson Mnangagwa praised the man he betrayed and overthrew in a coup two years ago as "our revolutionary icon, statesman, leader, wartime commander, and former president."

Alongside Lungu serving and former presidents from Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, paid tribute to him as one of the last of a generation of pan African leaders and icons of the liberation struggle against colonialism.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea e since 1979, opened the tributes to Mugabe as a "true African icon in the liberation of the continent from colonialism."

Jerry Rawlings, the former president of Ghana, said "he consistently demonstrated his steadfast commitment to our vision of the Africa we want."

After a 21 gun salute from the Zimbabwean army's howitzers and a flypast by six aircraft, the ceremony was over.

The commemorations will continue when his body is flown to his home village of Kutama, a 90 minute drive northwest of Harare for a wake on Sunday.

The extended Mugabe family and their neighbours have spent the past week putting up marquees and arranging seating and catering for thousands.

His body will not be laid to rest for a month, while a mausoleum is constructed at the Heroes Acre national monument, a cemetery where he himself insisted on burying liberation war heroes, including his first wife Sally