Asaba 2018: Top athletes stranded at Lagos airport

Bukola Adebayo and Damilola Odutayo, for CNN |2nd Aug 2018 | 1,903
Asaba 2018: Top athletes stranded at Lagos airport

African athletes stranded in Lagos

Organizers of the 2018 African Senior Athletics Championships being held in Nigeria have come under fire over poor arrangements for participants at the competition.

Some of Africa's most prominent athletes were photographed camping on the floor with their luggage at the Lagos airport on Tuesday.

Burundi's Olympic silver medalist Francine Niyonsaba shared pictures of herself, and other teammates camped on the airport floor, resting on their luggage on social media.

"Bad situation in Nigeria before African championship in ASABA 2018. be strong # the competition starts today," she tweeted.

Kenya's team arrived Monday and were stuck in Lagos for two days trying to secure a connecting flight to Asaba city in southeast Nigeria, where the event is being held.



Their troubles started on arrival at the Murtala Muhammad International Airport, Lagos, on Monday where immigration officials seized their passport, said James Magayi, a sports journalist who traveled with the Kenyan team.

"We expected a local organizing committee desk to assist all the incoming athletes and the press, but there was nothing like that. What the Nigeria airport authorities did was to confiscate all our passports, and we got our passport about 34 hours later," Magayi told CNN.

CNN was not immediately able to reach immigration officials for comment.

CAA in a statement said it had rescheduled some of the events slated for Wednesday due to "organizing problems."

Some of the Kenyan athletes finally arrived in Asaba Wednesday morning, Magayi said.

Other countries like Uganda, South Africa, Benin, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Egypt, South Sudan, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Morocco, and Rwanda also had their athletes stranded in Lagos, Athletics Kenya says.

The competition will act as a qualifier for the IAAF Continental Cup in Ostrava, the Czech Republic in September. (CNN)





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