E/Guinea man returns home after being forced to serve in Russian army

A young man from Equatorial Guinea who thought he was going to Russia to train as a bodyguard but ended up serving in Ukraine, has returned home safely, an AFP reporter saw.

Daniel Angel Masie Nchama was greeted by his parents as he stepped off an Ethiopian Airlines flight at Malabo.

“It’s great to be back in the country,” he told reporters upon his arrival.

He had left home in December 2025 after being contacted by a Cameroonian living in Russia, who led him to believe he was going there for military training with the promise of a job as a bodyguard.

After just 45 days in Russia and two months’ training in Murmansk in the north, he was transferred without his consent to a Russian military base in Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, a combat zone.

In mid-February, the All Eyes on Wagner collective published the names of 1,417 Africans recruited by Moscow between January 2023 and September 2025 to fight in the conflict in Ukraine, of whom more than 300 of whom have died there.

The government in Equatorial Guinea has promised to break down the trafficking networks that lure young African men to Russia.