Questions over Zambian student killed in Ukraine

Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda was fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine after he was recruited from jail.

Florence Nyirenda, right, mother of Zambian student Lemekhani Nyireda, is consoled by relatives as his coffin arrives at Lusaka airport. Picture: AFP

The body of a Zambian student who died while fighting in Ukraine after he was recruited in a Russian jail arrived home in a makeshift coffin on Sunday.

A white, glass-panelled hearse adorned with small curtains affording a partial view of the container holding the body arrived on the tarmac at Lusaka airport, where grieving relatives gathered. On the coffin was a code written in black marker pen along with letters in the Cyrillic alphabet, betraying its provenance.

Zambia demanded an urgent explanation from Moscow last month over the death of Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda in September while fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine, where he ended up after his spell in prison.

The 23-year-old had been studying nuclear engineering at Moscow Engineering Physics Institute but was handed a 9½-year jail term in April 2020 over a drugs offence.

Two weeks after Zambia’s demand for information, Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group admitted it had recruited him for Moscow’s “special operation” in Ukraine, adding he had voluntarily joined up before dying “a hero”. Wagner Group is owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has close ties to Vladimir Putin.

Russian law allows for a prisoner to be pardoned specifically for a “special military operation”, Zambian Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo said earlier this month.

Tearful relatives, including the student’s parents and brother, were on hand at the airport, clasping each other as a choir led those present in religious chants. A family spokesman said the body was to be transferred to a morgue for an autopsy with a burial date to follow.

Mr Kakubo said on Friday the issue of compensation to the family over the death would be discussed “in due course”.

AFP