Nine athletes have gone missing from the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australian police say
BBC News:
Seven are from Sierra Leone and have not been seen for two days. The others are from Tanzania and Bangladesh.
Team officials have said they have no idea if the athletes are hoping to apply for asylum in Australia.
Officially, they have not breached any immigration rules because they have been issued with special visas for the Games, valid for another month.
Most of the missing Sierra Leoneans are members of the athletics team, while another is a weightlifter. Together, they make up about a third of their country's Commonwealth Games contingent.
Sierra Leone team officials would not identify the missing athletes but said their disappearance had "dampened the team spirit".
"Obviously there is a feeling that it is not the nicest thing to do to the host country and your team mates to walk out," said Sierra Leone team spokesman Robert Green.
They have joined what has become a growing list of unaccounted-for athletes.
Earlier this week a boxer from Tanzania and a 400m runner from Bangladesh went missing, sparking fears they would try to remain in Australia illegally.
Australia's Immigration Department said the athletes' special Games visas expire on 26 April, and they would not become involved until after that date.
In the meantime, the police are treating the case as a missing persons investigation and have urged anyone with information about the missing athletes to contact them.
During the last Commonwealth Games in the UK city of Manchester more than 20 athletes from Sierra Leone disappeared.
Thanks goes to Eric Hilf for emailing me the link to this news story.
Then there were 11 - more athletes vanish
African athletes make a sprint for freedom
Another 7 athletes go missing
Squad formed to find missing athletes
Sierra Leone team fears backlash
posted by Adam Lawson @ 3:26 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"African athletes make a sprint for freedom"
I found this wording interesting, and so followed the link; and this is indeed the actual title of the story, as published.
Then I read the entire piece to see just how the (now missing) "African athletes" suffered from a lack of "freedom" back home -- so much so that they felt compelled to seek "freedom" in Australia by trying to remain there illegally.
I saw no evidence in the article that they lacked "freedom" in Sierra Leone. In fact, as athletes elite enough to be participating in the Commonwealth Games, it can be guessed that compared to ordinary Sierra Leonans these athletes enjoy many privileges:
"...with one competitor receiving money via an international transfer just days before vanishing."
For example.
"...may be using the money to lie low in Melbourne to avoid returning to their impoverished homeland, which is recovering from the ravages of civil war."
This may be a motivation to stay, but on the surface it has little or nothing to do with "freedom".
[World Vision head Tim Costello said the Sierra Leonian athletes could not be blamed. "None of us choose to be born, we are thrown on to the stage called life and if you're thrown on to that stage in Sierra Leone, you've basically got grinding poverty and early death," he said. "There's not an Australian who, if they were in that situation, wouldn't make a run for freedom too."]
Here apparently is the source of the title. Interesting.
"...they would not become involved until after that date."
Pure foolishness: it is clear what their intentions are, so authorities should immediately begin searching for them. Finding them may be more difficult as time passes.
It is unbelievable what you see in the media.
Apparently even more athletes are disappearing:
Doping scandal and missing athletes rock Games
Games rocked by missing athletes, doping
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