Russia has been questioned by Zambia on the death of a government-sponsored nuclear engineering student who was killed in action in Ukraine.
Lemekhani Nyirenda, 23, was a student at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute when, in 2020, he was found guilty of an unnamed crime and given a nine-year prison sentence.
Nyirenda was assassinated in September, according to Zambia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Stanley Kakubo, but Russia only recently informed the southern African nation, he was dead, he said at a news conference in the nation’s capital Lusaka on Monday.
“In view of this very sad development, the Zambian government has requested the Russian authorities to urgently provide information on the circumstances under which a Zambian citizen, serving a prison sentence in Moscow, could have been recruited to fight in Ukraine and subsequently lose his life,” Mr Kakubo said.
“As minister, I have been personally in touch, and will maintain contact with the family of the deceased in order to provide an update on more details surrounding their loved one’s death, once official communication is received from the Russian authorities,” he said.
According to rumors, the deceased’s remains would also be ready for return to his place of origin.
