Five members of the Eritrea U-20 national football team have disappeared in Uganda ahead of the semi-finals of the on-going Cecafa U-20 Challenge Cup.
After Eritrea booked their semi-final spot having beat Zanzibar 5-0 in the quarter-final match played at FUFA Technical Centre in Njeru, the five players vanished from their hotel.
Cecafa general secretary Nicholas Musonye told media : “The players and the coach have absconded. We don’t know where our brothers are.”
An Eritrean opposition website claimed the players were seeking political asylum in Uganda but that has not been confirmed officially.
Chairperson of Organising Committee for the Council of East and Central African Football Associations (Cecafa) Aimable Habimana has so far released the players’ names which include;
Hermon Fessehaye Yohannes, Mewael Tesfai Yosief, Simon Asmelash Mekonen, Deyben Gbtsawi Hintseab and first-choice goalkeeper Girmay Hanibal, are all said to have left Speke Apartments, where the team were residing on Tuesday evening.
Eritrea have lost to Kenya in the semi-final of the tournament this afternoon at the Njeru Technical Training Centre.
It is not the first time players from the national squad have defected abroad.
In December 2013, nine members of the Eritrea national football team and the coach of the squad disappeared in Kenya following the Cecafa Senior Challenge tournament.
Also in December 2012, 17 players and the team doctor went missing and were later given asylum by Uganda.
Several of those players have since reappeared in Houston, Texas under a refugee resettlement programme in the United States.
The Eritrea government was recently forced to find a way of curbing such incidences. Last month Members of the Eritrean football team each reportedly paid a £5,600 guarantee before being allowed to fly to Namibia for a World Cup qualifier.
