Seventeen players from the Eritrea football
team and the team doctor are believed to
have absconded in Uganda.
Only 12 players returned from a shopping
trip on Sunday - and, of these, five later left
saying they were visiting friends and did not
return.
It meant only five players and two officials
were left to return home to Asmara on
Tuesday.
Security agencies have launched a search for
the missing players, who had been in
Kampala for a Cecafa Cup match.
"We don't know where our brothers are,"
said team coach Teklit Negash.
The website of Eritrea's opposition party
claimed the players were seeking political
asylum in Uganda, but this has not been
confirmed.
Federation of Uganda Football
Associations (Fufa) vice-president in charge
of youth Patrick Ogwel confirmed the
members of the Eritrean party were missing
and said: "We shall find them wherever they
hide."
And Fufa chief executive officer Edgar
Watson said pictures of the missing players
would be displayed in newspapers so they
could be tracked easily.
"We shall find them because they are not
very far," added Watson.
The Eritrean team was eliminated from the
east and central regional championship at
the group stage after drawing with Zanzibar
0-0, losing 3-2 to Malawi and being beaten
2-0 by Rwanda in their last match on
Saturday.
Sylvia Nakamya, manager at the Sky Hotel -
the base of the Eritrean team - revealed that
the players left on Sunday to go shopping,
but only 12 returned.
Nakamya added: "Later, five of those who
returned also said they were going out to
visit their friends and they did not return."
After the 2010 Cecafa tournament in
Tanzania, 13 players from Eritrea's team also
disappeared and defected.
Several of those players have since
reappeared in Houston, Texas under a
refugee resettlement programme in the
United States.
The Eritrean players who travelled to
Uganda are Samuel Alazar, Yohannes Nega,
Essy Kiflom, Yuhannes Tilahun, Merhawi
Kesete, Hermon Tecleab, Medhanie Redie,
Yosief Ghide, Ahmed Abdurahman, Tesfalem
Tekle, Yonatan Solomon, Fitsum Kelati,
Mekonen Kibrom, Daniel Alexander,
Kuluberhan Gltensae, Merhawi haile, Aman
Habteslus and Amir Osman.