Out of Africa and staying

AWOL Games athletes in Sydney

AFRICAN athletes who disappeared from the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games instead of returning home have turned up in Sydney seeking legal advice on how to stay in Australia.

Up to 19 athletes who went on the run in the closing week of the Games last month have until their visas expire at midnight to leave Australia or face detention or deportation.

Eleven are believed to be from Cameroon, while others hail from Uganda, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Rwanda.

The Bulletin can reveal some have approached Randwick’s Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS) for help with visas.

RACS solicitor Ben Lumsdaine confirmed “some have been to us for advice”. Although he refused to comment on individual cases, he doubted one month since the Games was long enough for the DeDATA partment of Immigration and Border Protection to process critical protection visas.

“That’s unlikely, it can take quite a long time, it depends how quickly the department respond to each claim,” Mr Lumsdaine said. “The process can take many months, sometimes it takes years. We just hope there’s a fair legal process. We don’t have any vested interest in the outcomes.”

Ray Turner of Turner Coulson Immigration Lawyers said the missing athletes could be eligible for bridging visas, allowing them to avoid detention while their protection visas were being processed.

But they needed to apply before tonight’s deadline.

“If they’ve been getting decent advice they would have lodged it by now,” Mr Turner said.

He said the athletes “seem to be starting behind the eight ball” in terms of arguing they face “legitimate persecution” if they returned home.

“If they’re representing their country one might assume they’re among the elite in their country,” he said, adding “every individual has an individual case”.

Mr Turner said Australia’s best immigration lawyers were in Sydney, which may have lured the athletes south. “That’s probably out there on the grapevine somewhere.”

Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton’s office would not confirm how many of the athletes were still believed to be in the country yesterday, or how many were at a known location.

During the Games, Rwandan weightlifting coach Jean Paul Nsengiyumva went missing after excusing himself for a toilet break mid-tournament.

He, like others who disappeared from the athletes village, did not waste time packing a bag.

Cameroon athletes left the village in groups of two or three.