Body of Zambian student Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda, who was killed in the war with Ukraine aged 23, has been flown home, Associated Press reports.
On Sunday, his body arrived in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital.
Nyirenda arrived in Russia in 2019 to study in Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. He got a job as a delivery person to earn extra money. In 2020, the man was detained after drugs were found in a parcel that he was delivering. Nyirenda was subsequently sentenced to 9 years and 6 months in prison.
Nyirenda’s sister claims that he last called his family on 31 October.
“He then told his parents: ‘I am no longer in prison but where I am now is a secret’. My parents and all of us were concerned about this. We knew that he was a convict in a foreign country where he had no rights, we were very worried about what was happening. But he could not share any details and the parents did not press him,” she said.