schemes luring citizens to Russia under false pretences. A growing number of African countries have in recent months begun to discover that their citizens have been duped into fighting for the Russian army, and either killed or captured on the battlefield. Ghana's Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa travelled to Kyiv this week to discuss the fate of two Ghanaians taken prisoner on the frontline.

His Ukrainian counterpart, Andriy Sybiga, told him that more than 1,780 Africans from 36 countries were fighting Ukraine as part of Russia's forces. Ablakwa said on Wednesday that his fellow countrymen were "victims of manipulation, misinformation of criminal trafficking networks". "We were informed that 272 Ghanaians are believed to have been lured into battle since 2022 for which an estimated 55 have been killed and two captured as prisoners of war," he wrote on X. "As a responsible government, we cannot turn a blind eye to these heartbreaking statistics. These are not just numbers, they represent human lives, the hope of many Ghanaian families and our nation." The foreign minister said the government was "committed to tracking and dismantling all dark web illegal recruitment schemes operating within our jurisdiction". "This is not our war and we cannot allow our youth to become human shields for others," he added. (Bssnews)