While Burundi was taking part in the U19 World Cup in Croatia, ten players from the national team are still missing. They are being actively sought by the Croatian police.
Burundi took part in the U19 Handball World Cup (August 2-13) in Croatia. Although they were due to meet Bahrain on Thursday August 10, the match did not take place. The reason? Half the team had disappeared.
Ten players are believed to have absconded and are being actively sought by the Croatian police."Ten young men, born in 2006, left the premises of a university campus in Rijeka at around 3.30pm yesterday (Wednesday) and headed off in an unknown direction," the regional police said in a statement.The police have launched an operation "with the aim of finding the missing persons and establishing the facts and circumstances of their disappearance".
Burundi were also due to face New Zealand on Friday August 11. But the team forfeited again. It's a situation that has the President of the Burundi Handball Federation very upset. "We are shocked, both we as an association and the parents of our national team players, with whom we are in constant contact.We're asking anyone who can help us find our boys to do so. I don't even know how we'd get home without them," says Dauphin Nikobamye, President of the Burundian Handball Federation, quoted by the Croatian media outlet Index and quoted by Le Parisien.
