Former president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda has died aged 97.

He passed on at the Maina Soko Military Hospital in Lusaka where he was admitted earlier this week.

Kaunda was the first president of independent Zambia and served his country from 1964 to 1991.

The late African revolutionary leader was among the continent's few surviving liberation heroes.

Zambia’s head of state President Edgar Lungu urged the nation to pray for the former president so that "God may touch him with his healing hand".

Kaunda will be remembered as a peace-loving African leader who brokered peace agreements in troubled countries within Africa