CNN
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The body of Lemekani Nathan Nyarenda, a fighter recruited by the mercenary group Wagner for combat operations in Ukraine, was returned to Zambia on Sunday.
Nyirenda’s body arrived at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in the capital Lusaka and was accompanied by Shadrek Luvita, Zambia’s ambassador to Russia, its foreign ministry said.
The ministry said in a statement that Nyirenda’s family and foreign ministry officials received the body. series of tweets sunday.
In agency photos from the airport, a coffin can be seen in a white hearse with Cyrillic writing on the outside, indicating the coffin’s place of origin.
A group of choral singers and members of the grieving family were at the airport to receive Nyirenda’s body.
He died in September fighting for the Russian side in Ukraine.
His remains would be “taken directly to the University Hospital mortuary” and then a series of post-mortems would be carried out before the body would be handed over to the family and cremated, Nyirenda’s family Said Sunday.
Nyirenda, 23, was sponsored by the Zambian government to study nuclear engineering at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, according to the southern African country’s foreign ministry.
The ministry said the student was convicted of unspecified crimes in Russia in 2020 and jailed for nine years and six months. Statement His death was announced last month.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed ‘Putin’s chef’ thanks to lucrative catering contracts from the Kremlin, admits to being the head of Wagner, In the summer Prigozhin himself was leading recruitment drives in Russian penal colonies.
He appeared in various social media videos encouraging inmates to join Wagner’s ranks. In exchange for the tour of duty, the prisoners are given a healthy salary and amnesty upon completion – and survival – of the six-month tour. Or in the event of their death, their families will receive a lump sum payment.
Last month, Prigozhin Admitted to the recruitment of Nyirenda from a Russian prison, saying that he chose to fight to repay “(Africa’s) debt to Russia” and “died a hero.”
Zambia’s Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo addressing Parliament on Friday Nyirenda said In August he was pardoned by the Russian government “for engaging in a military campaign in exchange for amnesty”.
Minister Kakubo’s suggestion in his statement on Friday is that the Russian government is aware of, and approved of, Prigozhin’s recruitment of Russian prisoners in Ukraine, which the government has never commented on.
Last week, Russian media outlet RIA FAN, part of a media holding company run by Prigozhin, published a articles and videos Showing a “farewell ceremony” for Nyarenda at a chapel in Krasnodar, southern Russia.
The video depicts eight men in army uniforms, all holding a candle around a casket draped in Wagner’s black and red catafalque, with Nyirenda’s picture and two medallions on top.
The article accompanying the video stated that Nyirenda “died near Bakhmut” and that he was “an attacker in the ranks of PMC Wagner.”
Bakhmut has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in eastern Ukraine, and one of the fronts where Wagner troops are fighting.
The chapel, briefly seen from the outside, is known as the ‘Wagner Chapel’ and is a very rare sight inside a secret space associated with Wagner.