In 2019 when a 19-year Lemekani Nyirenda left his country, Zambia, on scholarship to Moscow, he was full of promises for himself and his family. Lemekani arrived in Russia in high spirits completely assured of a fulfilling experience in the country. On his YouTube page and other social media handles, he shared pictures and videos of his new exciting life in Moscow.
Unfortunately for Lemekani, this excitement of relocating to a new country didn’t last for long. A few months into life as a resident of Moscow, Lemekani ran short of funds and needed a job to make some money. He posted a job-seeking advert online which caught the attention of a drug dealer. The drug dealer called and offered to employ Lemekani as one of his delivery boys. Hesitantly, Lemekani accepted the gig, since he desperately needed money. This was in the year 2020 and within the same year, Lemekani was arrested while trying to deliver drugs and was sentenced to jail for 9 years.
While he served his jail term, Russia went to war with Ukraine, and as the war intensified, Russia began to browbeat prison inmates into accepting to join her army as a gateway to their freedom. To purchase his freedom, Lemekani Nyirenda joined the Russian Wagner fighters and was immediately deployed to the frontline of the war in Ukraine. He never made it back alive as he was killed in September, 2022 while fighting in Ukraine for Russia.
Lemekani’s story was documented by Giulia, Filipp and Felix in a report entitled “African Fighting on Russia’s Front Line in Ukraine” which was published by Reuters on the 22nd day of June 2023. The report covered the stories of other African inmates like a Tanzanian student by the name of Tarimo who was similarly moved from a Russian prison to the frontline of the war in Ukraine and who like Lemekani, died while fighting in a war he knew nothing about. But the story of Russia’s exploitative use of African immigrants in the ongoing war didn’t stop with the heartbreaking stories of these inmates-turned-soldiers.
Recently, a Ghanaian Television Station, TV3GH published a disturbing story of fourteen young Ghanaians who were lured into leaving their country to Russia only to be drafted into the Russian army and sent to Ukraine to fight the war.
In a viral video published by TV3GH, one of the victims of the human trafficking perpetrated by Russia shared his ordeal in the hands of some undisclosed Russian officials who hoodwinked him and 13 other young Ghanaians into signing documents (written in the Russian language) before whisking them away to Ukraine to train and fight in the war. As we speak, no one knows the fate of these 14 young Africans.
There are also reports of African immigrants/residents being coerced into joining the army either by threats of deportation or by refusal to renew their residence permits by the Russian government. An essay published in ADF Magazine describes how Russia shields/protects her civilian population from the war by employing foreigners to join her army and fight the war in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, despite all these indicting reports against Russia, the country’s influence in Africa continues to wax strong by the day. Russia’s Wagner Group (a private military organization), for example, has been on the ascendency in operations in Africa despite losing its founder and leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in 2023.
In fact, following Prigozhin’s death, the Russian Military of Defense took charge of Wagner, renamed it to “African Corps” and has since commenced serious recruitment of mercenaries from African countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, and Uganda.
According to an intelligence report from the Ukraine Military Intelligence, Russia plans to deploy these mercenaries to fight for Russia on the frontline of the war in Ukraine. Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian media outlet, quotes a portion of the intelligence report as follows:
“The mercenaries are lured by a starting payment of $2,000 for signing a contract, promised a monthly allowance of $2,200, health insurance, and Russian passports for them and their families.”
If the above claims by the Ukrainian Military Intelligence are true, one can imagine the number of young Africans who might have jumped at the opportunity and enlisted in the Russian army to fight in the war.
And I am not just talking about some of those ne’er-do-well youths; I am talking about highly talented and hardworking youths who wouldn’t mind risking it all just to escape the hunger and hardships of Africa. To the majority of these persons, it is better to die on war fronts as Russian passport soldiers than to be beaten to death by hardships in their poverty-stricken communities in Africa.
As defeatist as this may sound, that’s the sad reality of Africa today. And so, while it is important to conscientise our young men and women against this reckless desperation to leave Africa even at the expense of their lives, it is even more important to emphasize the need to make Africa livable for the African youth.
I call on the respective governments of the affected African states, the African Union and the United Nations to take drastic measures against Russia for this obvious breach of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons (which is one of the 3 protocols contained in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime), Article 3 of which defines trafficking in persons as:
(a) “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;
(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used.
