Zambia has demanded answers over the death of a student who was fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
Lusaka has asked Moscow “to urgently provide information on the circumstances” surrounding Lemekhani Nyirenda’s death.
The 23-year-old, a student at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, had been serving nine years in jail for a drug offence.
He died in September but Russia has only just informed Zambia’s government.
The Zambian embassy in Russia established that Mr Nyirenda’s body had since been transported to the Russian southern border town of Rostov-on-Don in readiness for repatriation to Zambia, Zambia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Stanley Kakubo said.
The circumstances of his release from prison are unknown, but Russia has offered freedom to some prisoners in exchange for fighting in its war in Ukraine. END