Accra –
Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, reported that 55 of his citizens had died while fighting in Ukraine. Ablakwa promised to crack down on illegal recruitment schemes that lure citizens to Russia under false pretenses.
“More and more African countries in recent months have begun to discover that their citizens had been tricked into fighting for the Russian army, and then died or were captured on the battlefield,” Ablakwa said as reported by AFP, Friday (27/2/2026).
Ablakwa will travel to Kyiv this week to discuss the fate of two Ghanaians taken prisoner on the front lines.
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His Ukrainian counterpart, Andriy Sybiga, told Ablakwa that more than 1,780 Africans from 36 countries fought for Ukraine as part of Russian forces.
Ablakwa said his compatriots were victims of manipulation, misinformation from criminal illegal trading networks.
“We have information that 272 Ghanaians are believed to have been lured into war since 2022, of which an estimated 55 were killed and two were taken as prisoners of war,” he wrote in 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 hopes of many Ghanaian families and our nation.”
Ablakwa said the Government of Ghana is committed to tracking and dismantling all illegal recruitment schemes operating in the country.
“This is not our war and we cannot allow our young people to become human shields for others,” he added.
(fas/idn)
