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Vocal Africa Executive Director Hussein Khalid, Pauline Dume, and Grace Gathoni address the media in Nairobi on January 27, 2026.
When Ms Grace Gathoni watched her husband, Martin Macharia, leave home in search of work abroad, she believed the sacrifice would secure their children’s future.
Instead, it has left her confused and in poverty as she pleads with the government to return his body home.
Macharia, from Ruaka in Kiambu County, became the first officially confirmed Kenyan fatality in the Russia-Ukraine war. He was killed on the Donetsk-Lyman frontline, according to sources.
Authorities in Kyiv said Macharia left Kenya in late October via Sharjah to Moscow. He had been promised a driving job with a decent salary.
For Ms Gathoni, the promise was the hope of timely school fees, rent, and fewer nights worrying about the future.
“My husband said he had found a job abroad and would come back after six months. When he landed in Russia, they recruited him into the military,” she said .
Pauline Dume holds a photograph of her husband, Errustus Kitti Nyale, who traveled to Russia for what he believed was a driving job but is now fighting in the Ukraine war.
“He even sent a picture of himself in an army uniform and said he was undergoing training. I reminded him that he told me something different.”
Like many families weighed down by joblessness and the rising cost of living, Ms Gathoni and her husband trusted the opportunity, which she said was linked to the government-publicised Kazi Majuu programme.
“I ask for help from the government. I’m now a poor widow with two children. I plead with the President to come to our aid,” she said.
“I don’t know how my husband’s body can be flown back home. I have been trying to find a way.”
She said the children have been asking where their father is.
“They don’t know if he is still alive. I am in pain. It is the government that advertised the jobs abroad,” she said.
Ms Gathoni and other families say the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs needs to act swiftly in repatriating the bodies of those who have died in combat and ensure the return of those still alive.
“We got information from the Russian embassy concerning my husband’s body. We went to the ministry’s offices yesterday but were not given details on flying the body home,” she said.
“We were told to look for Sh600,000 to Sh1.5 million.”
According to families of the injured who returned home, hundreds of Kenyans could still be stranded or trapped in hostile conditions in Ukraine.
Mr Joel Ojiambo’s son, Oscar Khagola, died while fighting for Russia. Khagola left Nairobi on June 26, 2025, after informing the family that he had secured a job in Russia.
Errustus Kitti Nyale (38). His family says he was recruited into the Russian military after being promised a driver’s job.
His last communication was a photo showing his arrival in Moscow, and later another picture showing him in military uniform.
Khagola’s recruitment reportedly began in Nairobi through a team that facilitated his engagement. Mr Ojiambo says he and the family were not aware Khagola would be taken to fight in Ukraine.
“I would not have allowed him to leave if I knew he was going to fight. That war does not concern Kenya. He was my only son,” Mr Ojiambo said.
Confirmation of Oscar’s death was this month. The family was contacted by relatives of another man who had been injured.
Mr Ojiambo was informed that Khagola died on August 14, 2025. His body is reportedly in Rostov-On-Don, southern Russia, though the Russian government has not notified the family.
Human rights lobby group Vocal Africa described the situation as a national crisis, warning that it exposed the state’s failure to protect and oversee its citizens.
The group’s Executive Director, Khalid Hussein, urged the government to take stern action against rogue recruitment agents involved in deceiving and trafficking Kenyans abroad.
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