Zambian student who died fighting for Russia. The Zambian student who died in the fighting in Ukraine was burie in a private ceremony in his country on Wednesday. A family spokesperson told AZ24 News.
Lemekani Nathan Nyirenda died on the front lines of the war in Ukraine. Hile fighting for the Russian mercenary group Wagner last September.
The representative of his family is dr. Ian Banda spoke to AZ24 News on Wednesday morning. As the family headed to Nyirenda’s final resting place in his village.
“We are going to bury him now… We are in a convoy… His mother (Nyirenda) and father in a vehicle behind me. They are crying now,” Banda told AZ24 News. Nyirenda was return to Zambia last month. Arriving on December 11, his remains were take to the University of Zambia Teaching Hospital. Mortuary for a post-mortem in accordance with Zambian law.
“The funeral gathering at the Nyirenda family house. The formal service of the funeral and memorial service will only begin after the above-mention mandatory formalities have been complete,” The family said in a statement at the time.
Zambian student who died fighting for Russia; Banda told AZ24 News. That the autopsy on Nyirenda’s body had been “confirm”, giving no further details.
Nyirenda is not the first African student to be kill on the Ukrainian front fighting for Russia in a development. That has sparked outrage across the continent.
A Tanzanian national identifie by his country’s foreign ministry as Nemes Tarimo was kill last October. When he fought Wagner in exchange for money and amnesty, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Tarimo was a master’s student at Moscow Technical University, studying business informatics, and was sentence to seven years in prison last March on public criminal charges, the ministry said, adding that his body had been sent from Russia and was expect to come to the country. Tanzania is waiting for a funeral soon.
From student to prisoner
Nyirenda, 23, was support by the Zambian Government to study nuclear engineering at the Moscow Institute of Engineering Physics, but was convict of unknown crimes in Russia in 2020 and sentenced to nine years and six months in prison, Zambia’s foreign ministry said in a statement announcing his death. In a follow-up statement last month, the ministry explain that Nyirenda was pardone by the Russian government in August to “participate in military operations in exchange for amnesty” and was “kill in September 2022 while participating in military operations.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, admitted to recruiting Nyirenda from a Russian prison and said he chose to fight to repay “(Africa’s) debt” to Russia and “died a hero.”
