Eritrea’s surprise march into the main Africa Cup of Nations qualifying bracket may unravel before the draw is even staged: seven of the ten home-based footballers who clinched the historic berth are nowhere to be found.
The squad had sealed progression on 31 March by beating Eswatini 4-1 on aggregate, ending a six-year competitive silence and earning a place among 12 preliminary-round winners that will join the continent’s 42 top-ranked sides in September’s group phase. Yet when the delegation changed planes in South Africa en route to Cairo, only three of the ten Eritrean-based players boarded the onward flight, a Confederation of African Football official told AFP. “This incident is a mystery,” the source said adding that “no one seems certain what happened thereafter.”.
Coach Hesham Yakan, the Egyptian 1990 World Cup defender appointed only weeks earlier, had called up 24 footballers in total—14 of them expatriates living in countries ranging from Sweden to the Philippines—to contest the tie. After a first-leg 2-0 win in Meknes, Morocco, and a 2-1 second-leg victory in Lobamba, Eritrea thought it had embarked on a new chapter following years of self-imposed isolation triggered by previous mass defections.
The missing group is reported to include goalkeepers Kibrom Solomon and Awet Maharena, defenders Wedeb Fessehaye, Yosief Tsegay and Nahom Awet, veteran midfielder Medhane Redie and striker Amanuel Benhur. Those who landed in Asmara were captain Ablelom Teklezghi, midfielder Nahom Tadese and forward Romel Abdu.
Past away fixtures have seen more than 80 Eritrean players, coaches and officials seek asylum since 2003, according to United Nations estimates, driven largely by open-ended national service obligations. Repressive governance under President Isaias Afwerki, in power since independence in 1993, is cited by human-rights monitors as the root cause; Afwerki has dismissed the charge as “fantasy.” Whether the governing body will rethink its recent overtures—such as allowing December’s return to competition or February’s election of federation president Paulos Weldehaimanot Andemariam to head the Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations—remains unclear.
Source: aljazeera
Original author: Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and Reuters
