Zambian officials travel to Russia to return student killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine

Authorities in Zambia have announced that they would go to Russia the next week to reclaim the remains of a 23-year-old Zambian who died while serving with the Russian troops in Ukraine. Moscow has yet to explain how he joined the army while serving a nine-year prison sentence in Russia, and his family and the Zambian government are still waiting for an explanation.

The ministry of foreign affairs is leading attempts to send Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda’s body back to Zambia for burial, according to Thabo Kawana, a spokeswoman for the Zambian ministry of communications and media.

According to Kawana, the foreign affairs minister has spoken to and visited Nyirenda’s family.

In addition to providing assistance at this difficult time, the government is doing all in its power to make arrangements for the funeral and the repatriation of the body back to Zambia, according to Kawana.
“We will be able to get to the bottom of this situation via our diplomatic channels and our all-weather collaboration between Russia and ourselves.”

Student Nyirenda was raised by middle-class parents Edwin and Florence Nyirenda, who taught at the University of Zambia. The youngest of four kids, he was young.

Tivo was Nyirenda’s twin brother. Lemekhani had lofty aspirations for the development of Zambia, according to their older sister Munangalu Nyirenda.
She claimed that his passing had crushed her close-knit family.

She continued, “They have robbed him of his brilliant future. He was our baby brother.” “Why? Why? We want an explanation from Russia since this hurts so much.

Nyirenda’s close friend Peter Daka, a resident of Moscow, regarded him as a driven and intelligent young guy.

The man who understood exactly what he wanted and pursued it, according to Daka, was a decent boy who took his work seriously and determinedly. I really never understood the scandal he was involved in in 2020, and it’s terrible that we ultimately lost him.

Lemekhani Nyirenda’s fundamental human rights were violated by Russia, according to Boniface Cheembe, a human rights advocate and executive director of the Southern African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, a human rights think tank.

Human rights are a problem, especially when the individual’s agreement is involved, according to Cheembe.

The Russian Embassy in Lusaka declined to respond to a request for comment from the media despite agreeing to it.

Nyirenda, who was a student at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, was sentenced to nine years in prison last Monday, according to Zambia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Stanley Kakubo.

He said Nyirenda had been killed in combat in September, although Zambia had just learned of the death from Russian officials.
According to Kakubo, Zambia had requested explanations for the student’s passing and the reason he had been transferred to Ukraine.

Many Zambians are stunned by the news, but they are also angry that the government has not provided more details on what transpired to cause the student’s deployment to Ukraine.