Two Burundi teens seen crossing into Canada

Six vanish from U.S. robotics event

Two Burundi teenagers are believed to have crossed the border into Canada after disappearing from an international robotics competition in Washington, D.C., U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

Canadian authorities, however, refused to say whether the teens were safe or still considered missing.

All six students from the Burundi team visiting Washington for the “Olympics-style” event went missing sometime around 5 p.m. Tuesday.

After the closing ceremonies, the team’s chaperon returned alone to their dormitory, thinking his team had taken a separate shuttle bus back from the event. But the six teammates — all between 16 and 18 years old — were gone.

It appeared, event organizers said, they had deliberately disappeared. All six of their dorm keys were tucked into the chaperon’s bag, and their clothes were missing from their rooms. The president of the competition, First Global Challenge, reported them missing around midnight. Police asked that the report be filed by the chaperon instead.

The chaperon complied, First Global said in a statement.

The missing report was timestamped 4:47 a.m. Wednesday, nearly 12 hours after the team was last seen, a police spokesman said. By Thursday, two of the team members — Don Charu Ingabire, 16, and 17-year-old Audrey Mwamikazi — were seen entering Canada, police said. The whereabouts of the other four were still unknown.

It’s unclear where the two teens crossed into Canada, or whether they did so illegally or through an official point of entry. Both the Canadian Border Services Agency and the RCMP refused to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns.

“It is not practice of the CBSA to confirm/deny the entry of any one person to Canada,” CBSA spokesperson Patrizia Giolti said in a one-line email.

A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, who oversees CBSA, also wouldn’t comment on the whereabouts of the teens.

Officer Hugh Carew with Washington Police said the missing persons investigation for the two students in Canada was still active as of Thursday evening. He couldn’t say whether they were in the custody of Canadian authorities.

Reports of the pair’s journey to Canada did not surprise Oscar Niyiragira, the chairman of the United Burundian-American Community Association Inc. He told the Associated Press that he assumed they were seeking asylum — since it’s believed the odds are better in Canada than the U.S., where the Trump White House has taken a harsh stance on immigration.

The teens’ apparent choice to go to Canada was disappointing, though, Niyiragira said, because it unfairly tarnishes Burundi’s reputation when people flee and exaggerate the fears of political violence. It’s more likely, he said, that economic impoverishment pushes Burundians to make asylum claims.

A BBC News report gives a starker portrait, of a country racked by tensions between a Tutsi minority and Hutu majority, “struggling to emerge from a 12-year, ethnic-based civil war.” In 2015, Burundi went through a period of unrest not seen since the end of its civil war in 2005, when protests broke out over the constitutionality of President Pierre Nkurunziza’s re-election for a third time, according to the BBC.

Global Affairs Canada warns against any travel to Burundi “due to ongoing political tensions, civil unrest and daily armed violence.” Last month, the Canadian government designated refugees claims from Burundi to be eligible for “expedited processing.”

Harold Crosner, a Canadian lawyer serving as the honorary consul at the Burundi consulate in Toronto, said he hadn’t received any information on the case from Canadian officials. He noted that while it wasn’t certain that the teens had actually entered Canada, if they had, they would have done so with “some planning and deliberation.”

“If they are here,” he said, “they’re free to contact me and I’ll pass the message onto their families ... If I can help to alleviate the fears or worries of a parent or a brother or sister as to the safety of their child, I’ll certainly do that.”