Zambian prisoner sent to die on front line

ZAMBIA has asked Russia to explain how one of its citizens who had been serving a prison sentence in Moscow ended up on the battlefield in Ukraine, where he was killed, the African nation’s foreign affairs minister said yesterday.

Stanley Kakubo said in a statement that Russia had notified Zambia about the death in September of Lemekhani Nyirenda, but did not provide details. The Zambian student, 23, was serving a jail sentence at a medium-security prison in Moscow after being convicted of contravening Russian law, Mr Kakubo said, without specifying the offence that occurred in April 2020.

“The Zambian government has requested the Russian authorities to urgently provide information on the circumstances under which a Zambian citizen, serving a prison sentence in Moscow, could have been recruited to fight in Ukraine,” Kakubo said. It was not clear how the prisoner was recruited and by whom.

“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,” Edwin Nyirenda, the student’s father said.

Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the circumstances of his journey to Ukraine and death.