A young Equatorial Guinean man has returned home after being lured to Russia with a fake job offer and transferred without consent to a military base in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
What started as a dream job offer turned into a nightmare on Ukraine’s front lines. Daniel Angel Masie Nchama is finally back in Equatorial Guinea, landing in Malabo to a warm welcome from his parents, according to an AFP report published by PUNCH.
“It’s great to be back in the country,” Nchama told reporters. He said he left in December 2025 after a Cameroonian resident in Russia promised him military training leading to a bodyguard job. Instead, after 45 days in Russia and two months of training in Murmansk, he was transferred without consent to a Russian base in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
His case adds to growing alarm over African recruits in the war — a recent report counted over 1,400 Africans recruited since 2023, with 300-plus killed. Equatorial Guinea has now pledged to dismantle the trafficking networks behind such schemes.
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