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For the people of Zambia, the football team is a beacon of hope.
The country’s economy is struggling after the price of copper, its main export, almost halved in the past four years. Revenues have fallen sharply.
President Frederick Chiluba declared a state of emergency across the country, claiming a coup plot against him had been uncovered.
However, the football team is our pride.
They were called Chipolo-polo, or copper bullets.
The nickname is derived from Zambia’s main industry and the team’s aggressive, attacking style of play.
The team had just beaten Mauritius 3-0 in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.
They have an eight-year unbeaten record at home and are a group of brothers at the top of their game.
For Zambians, the 1994 World Cup in the United States beckoned.
To reach the finals, they must finish top of three qualifying teams and beat Morocco and Senegal in home and away matches.
First up is Senegal’s away game.
As usual, a DHC-5 Buffalo military aircraft took them there.
The football association cannot afford commercial flights due to reduced funds caused by the economic recession.
Instead, the DHC-5 Buffalo, an 18-year-old twin-propeller aircraft whose early models saw action in the Vietnam War, will slowly make its way across the vast expanse of Africa.
The aircraft was not suitable for long-distance flights and had to stop regularly for refueling.
The plane was showing its age. Six months earlier, the pilot had told the players to put on their life jackets as they flew over the Indian Ocean on their way to Madagascar.
When the Zambian domestic players arrived at the airport outside the capital Lusaka to board their flight, they were greeted by Patrick Kangwa, a member of the national team selection committee.
He told 21-year-old midfielder Andrew Tambo and third-choice goalkeeper Martin Mba that they did not need to travel. They were dropped from the squad.
Their pride was hurt and insults were exchanged on the tarmac.
It’s a standard choice decision, but on this day, it determines who will live and who will die.
Those who board the aircraft face a daunting journey: The Buffalo is scheduled to stop and refuel in the Republic of Congo, Gabon and Ivory Coast before finally arriving in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.
But in reality, it never left Gabon.
The Zambian government never released a report on the incident on the flight.
But in 2003, Gabonese authorities said the plane’s left engine stopped working almost immediately after takeoff from the capital, Libreville.
The pilot was very tired because he had just flown the team members back from Mauritius the day before and mistakenly shut down the right engine.
The heavy aircraft suddenly lost power or lift and plunged into the sea hundreds of meters off the coast of Gabon, killing all 30 passengers and crew on board.
Back in the Netherlands, Bwalya had forgotten his run and saw the news on TV, which he already knew.
“There was a lady reading the news and behind her was the Zambian flag,” he recalled.
“She said, ‘The Zambian national football team travelling to Dakar, Senegal for a World Cup qualifier has been involved in a plane crash and no one has survived.’
“The ambition — being a young man, the brothers, the teammates, the team spirit — was gone in one day. But it’s still clear in my mind as if it was yesterday.”
Kangwa, the official responsible for sending the selected players to Lusaka, flew to Gabon.
Suddenly, his role changed from selecting the players to identifying their bodies.
“The bodies had been in the water for a while, so some of them had started to change,” he said. In the BBC International Service podcast The Brass Bullet.
“I had to try to say, who is this, who could this be?
“After that, I cried. We all cried. None of us could have imagined that we would see our colleagues torn apart.”
Meanwhile, Bwalya arrived in Lusaka and faced reality.
“We went to receive the bodies and they took the coffins one by one from the plane and transported them to the Independence Stadium,” he said.
“That’s when I realized I would never see the same group of guys I had flown on the same plane with a few months earlier.”
On May 2, 1993, more than 100,000 Zambians came to the Independence Stadium, home of Zambia, to attend the funeral.
Since the stadium could only hold 35,000 people, most attendees stayed on the streets.
After an all-night vigil and memorial service, the players were laid to rest in a semicircular grave.
Each grave is preceded by a tree in the “Heroes’ Place”, a memorial garden 100 metres north of the stadium.
One of them commemorates the life of legendary striker Godfrey Chitalu, who later became the team’s coach.
Another song was dedicated to Bwalya’s roommate David ‘Effort’ Chabala, who beat Italy at the Olympics and kept a clean sheet.
Among the victims was Kelvin Mutale, 23, a two-footed, aerially gifted international who had become Bwalya’s striker partner during his two years with the national team and scored three goals in the win over Mauritius.
“Debi Majinka was one of the best number six players Zambia has ever had,” Bwalya recalled. “He was like a tank.
“We have world-class players in every position.
“I can still feel being in the dressing room with the kids, I can still see the kids and how happy they were, it was a great time.”
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