Hundreds of people turned out in Lusaka, Zambia, on Tuesday to attend the funeral of Lemekani Nyirenda, a 23-year-old engineering student recruited by Russia’s infamous Wagner Group of mercenaries and killed while fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
Nyirenda traveled to Russia to attend the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, with an enrollment sponsored by the Zambian government. In 2020, he was arrested by Russian police on drug charges and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.
According to the BBC, Nyirenda was working part-time as a courier when the police claimed they found drugs in a parcel he was carrying. His family said he was contacted for deliveries by text message and had no idea what was in any of the packages he carried.
The Wagner Group, founded by a close ally of Vladimir Putin named Yevgeny Prigozhin, frequently recruits prisoners to become its slay-for-pay operatives — a practice deplored by international human rights groups and even some elements of the Russian government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, December 30, 2022. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
The U.S. government designated Wagner as a “transnational criminal organization” last week, citing its “widespread atrocities and human rights violations,” in addition to evidence that Wagner mercenaries are illegally obtaining weapons from North Korea.
Nyirenda was not just a Wagner prison recruit – he became something of a poster boy for the practice, filming social media videos that encouraged fellow inmates to spend six months fighting for Wagner against Ukraine, in exchange for good pay plus amnesty for their crimes.
Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin attends the funeral of Dmitry Menshikov, a fighter of the Wagner group who died during a special operation in Ukraine, at the Beloostrovskoye cemetery outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, December 24, 2022. (AP Photo)
Nyirenda also touted Wagner’s handsome death benefits to the families of fallen operatives, a benefit his family will now avail itself of, since he was killed in battle in September, reportedly during fierce fighting over the hotly contested city of Bakhmut.
It took over two months for the Russian government to notify Nyirenda’s family that he was dead. The family back in Zambia first learned of the death because an unidentified Russian called to inform them Nyirenda left some money for them in his will, and they needed to travel to Russia to pick up the cash.
The Zambian government claimed it did not know Russia was sending prisoners to die as cannon fodder in Ukraine until Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained the practice to them in December.
Prigozhin said on social media in December that he personally recruited Nyirenda from prison. Leaked videos from inside a Russian prison revealed that Prigozhin’s sales pitch involves telling the men not to have any sexual contact with Ukrainian women, claiming he can guarantee their freedom but not their safety, and then giving them five minutes to decide.
Prigozhin claimed that when he asked Nyirenda why he was willing to risk his life fighting for Russia in Ukraine, the Zambian responded: “You Russians helped us Africans gain independence for many years. When it was difficult for us, you extended your hand to us and continue to do so now … The least I could do, probably, to pay our debts is go to war with you.”
Prigozhin said Nyirenda “died a hero” while fighting to repay Africa’s “debts” to Russia and arranged for a heroic “farewell ceremony” for the slain Zambian student at Wagner’s headquarters town of Krasnodar, Russia.
The Zambian government said on Tuesday that the entire country is in mourning over Nyirenda’s “tragic” death. Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo promised that his government would work to ensure “nothing like this happens again to a Zambian studying in Russia” and would verify there are “no other Zambians in Russian prisons.”
“The pain of losing a loved one in unclear circumstances is unbearable. How can Russia start recruiting our citizens studying on scholarship to fight their war? It’s definitely not right and our government should ensure they protect the lives of our citizens in Russia,” an angry Lusaka resident said in December when Nyirenda’s body was returned to Zambia.
“This death requires government to strongly censure Russia and tell them to stop sacrificing our young people studying there to fight this unwanted war with Ukraine. I just hope they do that and draw a clear line for what can be tolerated or not,” said another.
Voice of America News (VOA) reported on Tuesday that a similar controversy is brewing in Tanzania over Nemes Tarimo, another African student recruited by Wagner and killed in Ukraine.
Like Nyirenda, Tarimo was arrested on vague drug-related charges by Russian police while studying in Moscow and was sentenced to seven years in prison in March 2022. He was recruited in prison by Wagner, killed fighting for the Russian empire in Ukraine, and given a heroic funeral by Prigozhin’s sinister mercenary organization before his body was shipped home to Africa.
Tanzanian Foreign Minister Stergomena Tax noted on Tuesday that it is “illegal for a Tanzanian national to join any foreign army.”