The South African government has confirmed receiving urgent pleas for assistance from seventeen of its citizens who had joined mercenary forces in Ukraine’s embattled Donbas region, seeking help to return home.
According to a statement released by the presidency on Thursday, the men — aged between 20 and 39 — are currently stranded in the war-torn area, where heavy fighting continues between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
“The government has received distress calls for assistance to return home from seventeen (17) South African men who are trapped in the war-torn Donbas,” the statement said, without clarifying which side the individuals had been fighting for.
Authorities believe the men were misled into joining foreign military groups through promises of lucrative employment contracts. “They were lured to join mercenary forces involved in the Ukraine-Russia war under the pretext of lucrative employment,” the presidency noted.
The Donbas region, an industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, has been at the centre of intense combat since Moscow launched its invasion in 2022.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered an investigation into the alleged recruitment of South African citizens as mercenaries. Under South African law, joining a foreign army without government authorisation is a criminal offence.
The presidency’s statement comes amid growing international reports of foreign fighters taking part in the conflict. The Russian defence ministry claimed in March last year that at least fourteen South African mercenaries had been killed in Ukraine since the war began — a figure that has not been independently verified.