Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) have confirmed that five Eritrean footballers from the women’s Under 20 national team currently doing duty at the CECAFA Under 20 Championship in Uganda disappeared from their hotel in Jinja on Tuesday morning. The Eritreans have lost the two games that they have played so far, falling to Tanzania by a goal to nil on the opening day before getting walloped by Ethiopia 5-0 on Monday, November 1, 2021.Press Release on Eritrean Women U-20 players pic.twitter.com/B3DI2HAjNE— Cecafaonline (@Cecafaonline) November 2, 2021 A statement from the regional body said the matter had been reported to police and investigations are ongoing, a statement that was echoed by the CECAFA Executive Director Auka Gecheo, as quoted by the BBC.”We have reported [it] to the authorities and given all relevant information and, together with Fufa, we will cooperate with the authorities. There were sufficient security measures in place, and FUFA ensured that all teams were in good hotels. It has happened before. Authorities are well aware of previous occurrences. We will continue to work closely with the authorities while ensuring we deliver on our mandate to deliver all-inclusive tournaments in the region,” Gecheo said.This is not the first time that there is a case of Eritreans going missing at the same tournament as two years ago, in 2019, five male players from the Eritrean U-20 male team fled their hotel in the country, again on a Tuesday.Reports indicates that Five players of Eritrea 🇪🇷 U-20 team have disappeared from their Hotel in Jinja ahead of the semi finals of the on-going CECAFA U-20 Challenge Cup, 2019 Eritrea 🇪🇷 will face Kenya 🇰🇪 in one of the semi final games at the FUFA Technical Center Njeru today pic.twitter.com/5gpQnHofeS— Town Far Fredo. (@townfarfredo) October 2, 2019 The same happened in Nairobi in December 2019, with up to 12 players disappearing from the team’s delegation during the regional tournament after they were knocked out by Tanzania in the quarterfinal.The 2020 CECAFA U20 Women’s Championship began on Saturday and runs until 9 November.
