The Council Of East And Central Africa Football Associations, CECAFA has come out to announce that five Female footballers of the Eritrean team have disappeared from camp in the ongoing CECAFA games.
The players vanished from their hotel in Jinja, Uganda. They were being accommodated at Sunset Hotel.
The tournament which kicked off on Saturday October 30th hosted by Uganda, is taking place at the FUFA Technical center in Njeru. Six countries are taking part in the regional tournament ; Tanzania, Ethiopia, Burundi, Djibouti and Eritrea. CECAFA on the other hand has indeed confirmed the disappearance of the players.
In a statement, CECAFA revealed that the matter has since been reported to police officers in Jinja and that investigations are already underway. "CECAFA, the federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) and the police are doing their best to locate these players." At the time of the disappearance each country had played two games and Eritrea had lost both starting with a 1-0 loss to Tanzania in the opener and later 5-0 to Ethiopia.
There were no details on their whereabouts and the Ethiopian government is yet to comment on the dire issue. It was not immediately established whether the rest of the team members will continue with the tournament. This being yet another incident of the same nature happening, dozens of Eritrean players have refused to return home or disappeared while competing abroad over the past decade, often in a bid to claim asylum.
In November 2019, 7 Eritrean football players disappeared in Uganda after participating in the Senior Challenge Cup. This happened only 2 months after the disappearance of 5 Eritrean players from their hotel during another CECAFA tournament. In 2012, 14 members of the Eritrean soccer squad disappeared again while still playing in a CECAFA tournament. In 2011 during a Cecafa event in Tanzania 13 Eritrean players vanished and later requested asylum, while 12 members of the national team sought asylum in Kenya in 2009.
In 2010, during the Cecafa tournament in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 13 Eritrean players disappeared and defected. Several of those players have since ended up in Houston, Texas under a US refugee resettlement program.