Around 20 people from an Ethiopian delegation have gone missing in Sweden after competing at the Gothia Cup football tournament in Gothenburg, police have confirmed.
According to authorities, the boys are aged between 14 and 17, and one or more team leaders are also unaccounted for.
On the final day of this year’s event, a school administrator found that the Ethiopian team staying at the school had left without notifying anyone. Gothia Cup organisers alerted police, who filed a missing persons report.
Investigators say the group has not returned to Ethiopia and that the disappearance appears to be voluntary. “There are no indications that there is anything illegal behind it, such as human trafficking or similar,” said Ellinor Halldin of the police missing persons unit for Region West.
The Gothia Cup, billed as the world’s largest international youth football tournament, has long been a setting where young athletes from restrictive or economically struggling countries have sought to remain in Europe, with similar cases recorded at Scandinavian youth events over the years.
Source: Complete Sports.
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