By Heather Curtis
wmal.com
Update 3 p.m. – (WMAL) Organizers of the robotics competition, FIRST Global, released a statement that said the students may have “self initiaited” their disappearance because they took all their clothes with them from the dorm where they were staying.
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Six teenagers from Burundi, Africa who were in D.C. for the FIRST Global Challenge robotics competition disappeared Tuesday. Thursday morning, D.C. Police confirmed two of them, 16-year-old Don Ingabire and 17-year-old Audrey Mwamikazi, crossed over the Canadian border. They did not know where the other four had gone.
D.C. Police stressed there was no indication of foul play.
“The conclusion we’re drawing is probably a correct one that they’re just reluctant to go home because of the situation there,” said Steve McDonald, a global fellow with the Wood Wilson Center’s Africa Program.
McDonald said the situation in the east African country is dire.
When the president decided to run for a third term in 2015, there was an attempted coup that killed between 700 to 1,000 people and led to ongoing violence, disappearances and assassinations.
“That may be what has affected the thinking of these young people about going back to their country,” McDonald said.
While he doesn’t know the teenagers, he said they all come from the capitol city of Bujumbura where violence is the most prevalent.
The unrest led more than 400,000 people to flee Burundi for neighboring countries, but McDonald said the U.S. is not accepting refugees from there.
The teens, just like anyone in the world, can seek asylum in the U.S. if they don’t feel safe going home, but McDonald said that’s a lengthy process. They came here on one year visas.
The Burundi embassy emailed WMAL and said they heard about the missing teens but were not informed about the competition or that a Burundian team was participating.
Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: FIRST GLOBAL CHALLENGE)
