Several athletes are unaccounted for after the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with police investigating reports that some competitors did not travel home alongside their teams.
Key takeaways
- Four Ugandan boxers were reported missing after the Games.
- One of the boxers reportedly said the group planned to seek asylum and pursue their careers in Scotland.
- Pakistan’s Qudratullah was also absent when his delegation returned home.
- Police Scotland is working with the Home Office as inquiries continue.
- The 11-day event ended after a 10-sport programme staged at four Glasgow venues.
Missing athletes reported after Games
Police Scotland said it had been notified about a number of athletes whose whereabouts were unknown following the event, which finished on Sunday.
Four members of Uganda’s boxing delegation reportedly failed to board the flight home. One person from the team was said to have told local media that the boxers wanted to apply for asylum in Scotland.
Pakistan boxer Qudratullah was likewise reported to have missed his delegation’s return journey. Officials looking for him reportedly found that he was not in his accommodation room.
There is a history of athletes vanishing after Commonwealth Games. In the aftermath of earlier editions, including Glasgow’s 2014 event, dozens either sought asylum or disappeared without trace.
A Police Scotland representative said officers had received several reports involving athletes who could not be accounted for. Investigators were examining the circumstances, while initial discussions had begun with the Home Office.
Local reports identified Uganda’s four absent boxers as Nuhu Batte, Angel Katushabe, Ibrahim Kemis and Emily Nakalema.
One of the four was reportedly contacted and said the athletes hoped to claim asylum and continue boxing in a country they considered to have superior facilities and better prospects than Uganda. The boxer also asked people in Uganda to understand the decision and not condemn them for it.
Team Uganda declined to comment on the situation. The remainder of the country’s delegation has since left for home.
Departure arrangements and previous cases
Competitors were due to leave according to the Glasgow 2026 stay-duration rules. Under that policy, Games housing was available until two nights after an athlete’s event had ended.
Glasgow 2026 spokeswoman Sophie Ashcroft said the organisers had hosted 3,000 athletes representing 74 Commonwealth nations and territories during the two-week period. She added that, as athletes and support personnel departed, officials were coordinating with Police Scotland, Border Force and UK Visas & Immigration to bring the Games to a safe and secure close.
After the 2014 competition, two Ugandan rugby players went missing once the event had ended. They were later located playing for a small club in Cardiff.
One of them, Philip Pariyo, subsequently received a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence for raping a woman in Cardiff.
The Home Office is understood to conduct more extensive screening before major sporting occasions, including the Commonwealth Games, and to work with event sponsors to tighten checks on people seeking entry to the United Kingdom for those events.
Any asylum applications made in the future would be assessed separately, based on each applicant’s circumstances, the relevant facts and the evidence available.
The Games concluded on Sunday after 11 days of competition. Organisers said their revised model, involving 10 sports across four Glasgow sites, had “saved and reinvented” the event after Victoria withdrew as the original host and cast doubt on its future.
