Kenya labour minister accused over Russian forced recruitment / Photo: © AFP
Kenya labour minister accused over Russian forced recruitment
Erastus Mundia left Kenya on a work programme his government had arranged with Russia. He died on the battlefield in Ukraine, and his family holds Labour Minister Alfred Mutua responsible.
Mundia was a 38-year-old father of three when he left in June 2025, one of hundreds of Kenyans promised well-paid civilian jobs in Russia, only to be forced to sign contracts with the Russian army, often at gunpoint.
Most received little military training. Many died on the front lines in Ukraine.
"Since I got the news, I hardly eat. I find myself in a different world," Josephine Ngoya, Mundia's mother, told AFP, holding a portrait of her son at his university graduation.
"I feel like the Kenyan government and Alfred Mutua have betrayed us," she added, speaking from her home in the Kakamega region of western Kenya.
Kenya officially estimates that 291 of its citizens have been victims of Russia's "irregular military recruitment", including 19 dead and 32 missing.
But a report by the Kenyan intelligence services, seen by AFP, puts the figure at over 1,000 and says officials were complicit.
Three senior Kenyan sources familiar with the case -- a civil servant, security official and lawyer -- told AFP that Labour Minister Mutua was personally and politically involved in the scam.
AFP could not independently verify the accusations. After initially agreeing to an interview, Mutua finally declined to talk.
- 'Life-changing' -
On June 26, 2025, Mutua shared photos of himself with Mundia and around 20 others leaving for Russia, saying they were headed for a "life-changing opportunity" that would earn them 115,000 shillings ($900) a month in a food-packing factory.
VOCAL Africa, a Kenyan rights group, believes most of the workers in the photos are now dead.
Mundia died in January, according to his parents. AFP was not able to independently verify the fate of the others.
Mutua was initially Kenya's foreign minister when President William Ruto came to power in 2022.
He hosted his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in May 2023, 15 months after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, with Kenya keen for diverse trade links despite its close ties to the West.
After he was moved to the labour ministry in August 2024, Mutua took charge of a work placement programme that has sent more than 400,000 Kenyans abroad.
Kenya relies heavily on remittances from workers abroad. They were worth more than a trillion shillings ($7.7 billion) last year, according to the government.
VOCAL Africa has dealt with more than 500 cases of Kenyans being forced into the Russian army, of which some 350 families know their relative has died.
It describes Mutua as "the main culprit".
"He signed all these agreements," VOCAL Africa's Odhiambo Ojiro told AFP.
"(Many people) died a painful death because Alfred Mutua and his accomplices are interested in making the money at the expense of lives of poor ordinary citizens."
- 'An insult to victims' -
In May 2025, Mutua was questioned in parliament about recruitment fraud for workers going to the Gulf.
He appeared alongside Festus Omwamba, head of recruitment agency Global Face Human Resources, who has since been arrested and charged with human trafficking over his role in the Russian recruitment scam.
"Mutua was behind all that but it is Festus who was thrown under the bus," a senior member of Kenya's security forces told AFP.
That claim was backed by the civil servant and lawyer.
Mutua has so far escaped any reprimand, let alone criminal charges -- to the consternation of victims' families.
"If the president feels our pain, he should sack Alfred Mutua for taking our children to go and die there.
"He should sack him and take him to prison," said Julius Matee, a friend of Erastus's family.
The government official told AFP that President Ruto was well aware of Mutua's involvement in the Russian scam.
"The guy shouldn't be in the government. He should be facing the judiciary," said the official.
But Ruto has a difficult election coming in 2027 and cabinet members bring valuable regional support, such as Mutua's base in Machakos County near the capital, Nairobi.
The scale of the Russia scandal means Mutua has nonetheless been sidelined.
When Kenya sent foreign minister Musalia Mudavadi to Russia in March to gain assurances that no more of its workers would be forcibly recruited, Mutua was barred from joining the delegation.
"Mutua wanted to come with us (to Moscow)," the government official said. "(But) it would have been... an insult to the victims."
strs-jf/ayv/er/jj/gil
B.Ramirez--LGdM
