On Monday, Zambia called on Russia to “urgently” explain how a Zambian citizen imprisoned in Moscow had been killed in combat in Ukraine.
In a statement, Zambian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Stanley Kakubo revealed that a 23-year-old government-sponsored student, Lemekhani Nyirenda, was killed on 22 September in the Ukraine war, which was confirmed by the Zambian Embassy in Moscow last week.
He expressed his confusion and alarm at how a “Zambian citizen who was serving a prison sentence in Moscow could have been recruited to fight in Ukraine and lost his life” and expressed his “deep sadness” at the “untimely death of Mr Nyirenda in such circumstances.”
Press Statement by Hon. Stanley K. Kakubo, M.P, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Republic of Zambia on the demise of a Zambian National in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/Vi08CxGuVF
— Zambia Foreign Ministry (@ZambiaMFAIC) November 14, 2022
“He was serving the prison sentence when he was conscripted into the army to go and fight in Ukraine but we don’t know who conscripted him,” Nyirenda’s father, Edwin Nyirenda, remarked.
In August, CNN reported that the Russian military was recruiting prisoners in exchange for amnesty and a salary to bolster its forces in Ukraine. It’s not clear how many Africans have been drafted to fight in Ukraine since February.
However, in September, a video showing Wagner group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin attempting to recruit Russian prisoners by saying that “nobody goes back behind bars” went viral. “If you arrive in Ukraine and decide it’s not for you, we will execute you,” he was seen warning in the video.
During a daily address in October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, too, remarked that Russia had “thrown” 2,000 prisoners into the Ukraine war.
The circumstances of Nyirenda release from prison are unknown, but Russia has offered freedom to some prisoners in exchange for fighting in its war Ukraine~@BBCNews https://t.co/nScUug73E1
— Kennedy Wandera (@KennedyWandera_) November 14, 2022
Nyirenda, who was studying nuclear engineering at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPHi), was convicted for selling drugs in April 2020 and sentenced to more than nine years. He was serving his sentence in a medium-security prison near Moscow.
Kakubo said that “Nyirenda’s remains have since been transported to the Russian border town of Rostov in readiness for repatriation to Zambia.”