The Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) has confirmed that five Eritrean players have mysteriously disappeared from the team’s camp that is currently in Uganda taking part in the ongoing CECAFA U20 women’s championship.The five whose identities have not yet been revealed are said to have sneaked out of their team hotel in Jinja on Tuesday morning before fleeing to unknown whereabouts.In a statement issued, CECAFA acknowledged the developing incident as they stated that the matter has already been reported to the Ugandan authorities with investigations to locate the girls already underway in conjunction with Uganda’s football organizing body.“CECAFA has confirmed that five Eritrean players have this morning disappeared from their Hotel in Jinja, Uganda. The team is taking part in the regional CECAFA Women’s U-20 Championship which kicked off on October 30th and ends on November 9th in Njeru, Uganda. The matter has been reported to the Police in Jinja, and investigations are ongoing. CECAFA, the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) and the Police are doing their best to locate these players,” a statement from the Eastern Africa association read.Press Release on Eritrean Women U-20 players pic.twitter.com/B3DI2HAjNE— Cecafaonline (@Cecafaonline) November 2, 2021 In the ongoing championship being staged in Njeru, Eritrea has already tasted defeat in two of their opening games, losing 1-0 and 5-0 against Tanzania and Ethiopia respectively to sit second bottom on the six-team log table that comprises Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Burundi and Djibouti.Cases and reports of player disappearance is not a new thing, especially from travelling teams. Back in June this year, Ugandan Rugby 7s national team player James Odongo went missing from the team camp that flew to Monaco, France to take part in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Repechage Qualification tournament.At the Tokyo Olympics, twenty-year-old Ugandan weight lifter Julius Ssekitoleko vanished from the Ugandan camp for one week before returning home in Uganda a week later.TOKYO 2020: Japan police find Ugandan weightlifter who went missing from Olympic camp
