The Croatian authorities have said that ten handball players from Burundi disappeared in the middle of the U19 World Cup.
According to the country’s police, the ten handball players who entered the territory of Croatia with the intention of participating in the international competition were nowhere to be found on Wednesday last week.
As the police disclosed, all the handball players left their accommodation in an unknown direction, and now the relevant authorities are taking measures on the matter, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“These are ten young men, born in 2006, who left the premises of a university residence in Rijeka at around 3:30 pm Wednesday and left in an unknown direction,” the statement of the police reads.
The police further noted that then ten Burundian handball players were supposed to remain in Croatia until the U19 World Cup was over. The competition officially began on August 2 and ended on August 13.
Moreover, the same stressed that despite the players having to move from one city to another during their stay in the country, they were housed in the university dormitories in Rijeka.
Now that the Brundian handball players have gone missing, the Croatian police launched an operation that is aimed at finding them as well as establishing the circumstances.
Commenting on the matter, the Croatian Handball Association said that despite them having some of the highest safety standards, the handball players still decided to leave.
The same stressed that this is an unfortunate situation and stressed that all relevant authorities are taking care of the matter.
“The competent police units were officially informed about the unfortunate event, and a search was launched, although formally, such events are treated as missing persons only after 24 hours,” the statement of the Croatian Handball Association reads.
The President of the Burundi Handball Federation, Dauphin Nikobamye, also commented on the matter. He said that they were very concerned about the situation and called for help to find all the players.
“We are in complete shock, us as a federation and the parents of our national team players. We ask for information from everyone who can help us find our boys. I don’t know how we could go home without them,” Nikobamye said.
While the police still have to find them and carry out the investigation, it is believed that the Burundian handball players decided to run away in search of a better life.
Croatia became a member state of the Schengen Area at the beginning of this year. The country does not have internal borders with the other Schengen country, this way being a transit country for irregular migrants planning to reach Western Europe.