CNN
—
The body of Lemekani Nathan Nyirenda, a fighter recruited by the mercenary group Wagner for combat operations in Ukraine, was returned to Zambia on Sunday.
Nyilenda’s body arrived at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in the capital Lusaka, accompanied by Zambia’s ambassador to Russia Shadrek Luwita, the Zambian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The body was received by Nyirenda’s family and foreign ministry officials, the ministry said in a statement. series of tweets Sunday.
An agency photo from the airport shows the coffin in a white hearse with Cyrillic writing on the outside indicating the coffin’s provenance.
A choir and a group of grieving families were at the airport to receive Nyirenda’s body.
He was killed in Ukraine in September fighting for the Russian side.
His remains will be “transferred directly to the University Hospital’s morgue” and undergo a series of post-mortem examinations before the body is handed over to the family for burial. Niirenda’s family said on Sunday.
Nyirenda, 23, was studying nuclear engineering at the Moscow Institute of Engineering Physics with funding from the Zambian government, according to South Africa’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The student was convicted of an unspecified crime in Russia in 2020 and sentenced to nine years and six months in prison, according to the ministry. statement I reported his obituary last month.
Evgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s Chef,” admitted to being in charge of Wagner thanks to a lucrative catering contract he got from the Kremlin. He led the conscription movement.
He appears in various social media videos encouraging prisoners to join Wagner’s ranks. In exchange for a patrol of duty, a prisoner would complete a six-month patrol and, upon surviving, would be given a proper salary and amnesty, or could receive a lump sum payment to his family upon death.
Prigozhin admitted last month that he had conscripted Nyirenda from a Russian prison, saying he chose to fight to “pay off his (African) debt” to Russia and “died a hero.”
Zambia’s Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo addressed parliament on Friday. Niirenda said In August, the Russian government allowed “participation in military operations in exchange for an amnesty.”
Kakuho’s suggestion in his statement on Friday was that the Russian government is aware of and approves of Prigozhin’s recruitment of Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine, which the government said I have never commented.
Last week, Russian media outlet RIA FAN, part of a media holding company run by Prigozhin, said: Articles and videos Niirenda’s “Farewell Ceremony” at a chapel in Krasnodar, southern Russia.
The video shows eight men in military uniform, holding candles around Wagner’s black-and-red catafalque-covered coffin topped with a picture of Nielenda and two medals.
An article accompanying the video states that Nyirenda “died near Bahmut” and was an “attacker in the ranks of PMC Wagner”.
Bakhmut is the site of some of the heaviest fighting in eastern Ukraine and the front line where Wagner’s soldiers have fought.
Chapels that are easily visible from the outside are known as “Wagner Chapels”, and inside secret places associated with Wagner are extremely rare.
