South Africa’s government said it will investigate how 17 of its citizens joined mercenary forces in the Russia-Ukraine conflict after the men sent distress calls for help to return home.
According to the government, it is working to bring home the men, who are between the ages of 20 and 39, and are trapped in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
In a statement issued on Thursday, South Africa’s presidency said the men were lured into fighting under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered an investigation into the circumstances that led to the recruitment of these young men into these seemingly mercenary activities,” the statement said.
The presidency did not specify which side the men were fighting on. Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwengya said: “We don’t know yet, hence the investigation.”
Most of Ukraine’s Donbas region, where the 17 are reportedly trapped, is under Russian military control.
While Russia’s embassy in South Africa has not yet issued a statement, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it is looking into the reports.
South Africa seeks to project itself as non-aligned in the war, while maintaining warm relations with Moscow as a fellow member of the BRICS group of emerging economies.
Under South African law, it is illegal for citizens to provide military assistance to foreign governments or participate in foreign armies unless authorised by South Africa.
There have been previous reports of African citizens being lured into conflict-prone countries and recruited as mercenaries.
Moscow has been accused in the past by developing countries of recruiting their citizens to fight on its behalf under false pretenses.
Last month, Kenya said some of its citizens had been detained in military camps across Russia after unknowingly getting caught up in the conflict.
“Agents who masquerade as working with the Russian government… use unscrupulous methods, including falsified information, to lure innocent Kenyans into the battlefield,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Oct. 27.
India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are among other countries reporting that scores of their citizens were recruited under false pretenses to join Russia’s war effort.
In August, South Africa’s government warned young people to be wary of fake job offers in Russia circulating on social media, after reports that some South African women had been tricked into making drones.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime said in a May report that women from more than 20 African countries had been recruited under false pretenses to make drones for Russia’s war.
