A 23-year-old Zambian student who was imprisoned in Russia has died while fighting in Russian ranks in Ukraine, the Zambian Foreign Ministry has reported.
The ministerial portfolio has reported that it was notified of the young man’s death on November 9. Subsequently, the Zambian Embassy in Moscow indicated that the student had died on September 22.
Since then, the victim’s remains have been transported to the Russian city of Rostov to begin the process of repatriation to his country of origin.
The African country’s foreign minister, Stanley Kasongo Kakubo, has requested information from the Russian authorities on the circumstances under which the citizen may have been recruited to participate in the war and subsequently died.
«As minister, I have personally contacted, and will continue to contact, the family of the deceased to provide an update on the details of the death of their loved one, once official communication is received from the Russian authorities,» Kakubo explained through a statement.
The fatality, Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda, was a Nuclear Engineering student at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPHI). In April 2020, Nyirenda contravened the laws of the Russian Federation and, as such, was subsequently convicted and sentenced to nine years and six months in prison. He was serving his sentence in the Tyer medium-security prison outside Moscow.
