http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4835826.stm Last Updated: Thursday, 23 March 2006, 06:58 GMT E-mail this to a friend Printable version Athletes 'go missing from Games' By Phil Mercer BBC News, Melbourne Visiting athletes are issued sporting visas for the Games Australian police say nine athletes have gone missing from the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. They include seven competitors from Sierra Leone, along with others 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. The seven competitors from Sierra Leone have not been seen for two days. Most are members of the athletics team, while another is a weightlifter. Together, they make up around a third of their country's Commonwealth Games contingent. 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. But going walkabout almost certainly does not mean they have broken the rules, because participants in Melbourne have been issued with special sporting visas that are valid for another month. In the meantime, the police are searching for the nine competitors after they were reported missing by their respective teams. Athletes from Sierra Leone have been under more scrutiny here than most. During the last Commonwealth Games in the UK city of Manchester more than 20 athletes from the troubled African nation disappeared. ********** The Commonwealth Games is becoming more like a free air ticket to emigrate to australia, as more and more athletes go awol by the day, i wonder if there will be any of the african teams left to go home, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Bangladesh, Oz is certainly going to have a lot more muti cultured society before the games is over. Maybe they can stay on in the atheletes dorms as squatters when it all ends, & the Oz government can convert them to new immigration detention centres, a little bit of barb wire around the perimeter, and darwin crocodiles in a moat surrounding it all. Thers nothing like the Commonwealth games to bring us all together, as one big happy family, & no doubt the escapees will be having many generations of happy families & barbies in there new country the Wizard of Oz.
None of these people are illegal immigrants yet. Their visas still have at least a month before they expire.
james the 2 who wern't from Sierra Leone had there visa's revoked as soon as they went missing and those that were have just had them revoked so the police could start a proper search (altho i dont know WHY they couldnt search when they were reported missing)
6 athletes from Sierra Leone have now be found (in Sydney). They have been granted bridging visas while their claims for asylum are being processed.
