Photos: Boniface Mwangi. Source: Twitter
By Kai Eli, Tuko
A Kenyan, Samuel Maina, is at a crossroads where he is trading between his freedom and life while fighting for Russia He was recently injured and hospitalised while facing off with the Ukrainian forces, and now risks being detained by Russia for refusing to return to the war Kenya's Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said he would be travelling to Russia to address the matter of Kenyans being conscripted into the Russian army as mercenaries.
Kenyans continue to have it rough in the Russia-Ukraine battlefield, where they fight for Moscow against the Ukrainian forces. Samuel Maina (pictured left) refused to return to the battlefield after being injured. One of them seeks assistance to leave Russia due to the death prospects after surviving an attack that left him injured. Identified as Samuel Maina, the Kenyan was hospitalised and thereafter required to return to the battlefield. He, however, declined redeployment, risking detention and later imprisonment like his colleagues.
Through activist Boniface Mwangi, Maina sought the intervention of the Kenyan government to rescue him.Two of Maina's friends were jailed for refusing to go back to the war. "Samuel Maina, who was injured and hospitalised in the Russia-Ukraine war, says he will be detained for refusing training and redeployment to the frontline, where he will likely be killed.
Nicholas Kaino Kiprotich and Kelvin Lemashon are in jail for refusing to be deployed," Mwangi said. Maina said he sustained serious injuries that he is yet to heal from despite the pressure from the commanders to return to the war. Seeming to have made up his mind, he said he wont return to the field, regardless of what action follows. "I am being forced to go to training then they redeploy me to frontline but I will not agree with that. I will be put in custody together with my other two colleagues without communication because they take our phones," he said.
His hope now remains divine intervention as he lacks any other viable option. "I am just from hospital and I haven't healed. I still sustain metals in my body but they don't care about that...We will be in custody awaiting God's mercies because we have lacked otherwise," he added.
