Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

HANDBALL

Two more Indian handball players found

With the discovery of two teenagers at Copenhagen Central Station early on Monday, six of the 11 players have now been found. They tell police that they ran off to avoid a beating from their coach.

Published: 14 July 2014 09:02 CEST

Two more Indian handball players found

Two players were found at Copenhagen Central Station on Monday morning. Photo: Hunter Desportes/Flickr

Two more players from the Indian handball team that went missing over the weekend have been found.

A DSB employee spotted the two young Indian players at Copenhagen Central Station early on Monday and notified police. With the four players who were discovered on Sunday evening at a Sikh centre in Vanløse, six of the 11 players have now been found.

The entire team of an India handball squad were reported missing on Saturday after they left the site of an international handball tournament in the northern Jutland town of Dronninglund. The young men are between the ages of 13 and 20.

The team was supposed to have taken a train from Aalborg to Copenhagen on Saturday evening and then get on a plane back to India. The team’s training staff went back to India without the missing teens.

Four of the Indian players were discovered on Sunday near a Sikh centre in Vanløse. Those four are in police custody, although police have stressed that the players have not broken any laws. The two players found on Monday morning at the train station have been reunited with the other four. The whereabouts of the five remaining players remains unknown.

According to various media reports, the boys have told police that they ran off to avoid being physically beaten by their coach.

“The Indians explained that they take a beating from their coaches when they lose handball games. That’s why they ran off,” police spokesman Henrik Beck told Ritzau. “They did not want to return to India with their coaches.”

Police hope to find the remaining five players on Monday.

The Indians have valid visas for being in Denmark until Wednesday, July 16th.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Travel: Spain imposes mandatory quarantine on arrivals from India over virus strain fears

Photo: JACK GUEZ/AFP

Spanish government spokesperson María Jesús Montero made the announcement on Tuesday, explaining that as there are no direct flights between Spain and India, it isn’t possible for Spain to adopt measures such as banning arrivals outright as other European countries have done.

The quarantine requirement for travellers arriving to Spain from India starts on May 1st 2021.

India joins a number of South American and African nations that are already on Spain’s quarantine list to stem the spread of the Brazilian and South African variants.

According to the Spanish government’s website, those “coming from the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of South Africa, Republic of Botswana, Union of Comoros, Republic of Ghana, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Mozambique, United Republic of Tanzania, Republic of Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe, Republic of Peru and Republic of Colombia, must remain in quarantine for 10 days after their arrival in Spain, or for the duration of their stay if it is shorter than that. This period may end earlier, if on the seventh day the person is tested for acute infection with negative results.”

India is currently battling a record-breaking rise in Covid-19 infections that has overwhelmed hospitals and led to severe bed and oxygen shortages.

A key question is whether a new variant with potentially worrying mutations – B.1.617 – is behind what is currently the world’s fastest-growing outbreak, setting four records in a row for the highest daily coronavirus infections by one country, the latest on Sunday with 349,691 new cases.

The country has also been recording around 3,000 deaths per day from Covid-19.

Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands have all imposed restrictions or travel bans on arrivals from India in recent days.

READ ALSO:

“No cases of the Indian variant have been detected to date to my knowledge,” Spain’s Emergencies Coordinator Chief Fernando Simón told journalists on Monday.

“The intel does not indicate that we have to worry about it,” he added, given that the UK variant now makes up 94 percent of all infections in Spain.

“We cannot rule out that a case (of the Indian variant) may be detected”, Simón admitted, but “so far it is not a variant of concern, it is a variant of interest”.

Patients breath with the help of oxygen masks inside a banquet hall temporarily converted into a Covid-19 coronavirus ward in New Delhi on April 27th, 2021. (Photo by Money SHARMA / AFP)

That is not a view shared by Amós José García Rojas , president of the Spanish Association of Vaccinations (AEV), who argues “we have to worry a lot” about the “chaos” that this new variant is leaving in the Asian country and why it could affect the spread of this strain of the virus.

“This new variant is fundamentally worrying because of what it is causing in India,” Rojas told medical publication Redacción Médica.

“It shows that as there are territories where people are largely not vaccinated, there’s many people who are susceptible to the virus and it creates a breeding ground for the development of new variants”.

“We cannot vaccinate comprehensively in some countries and forget about other countries at the mercy of God.

“We have to worry about everyone because there is a risk that situations like the one seen in India will happen again.

So far, the B.1.617 variant has been categorised by the World Health Organisation as a “variant of interest”.

Other variants detected in Brazil, South Africa and the UK have been categorised as “of concern”, because they are more transmissible, virulent or might reduce antibody efficacy.

Url copied to clipboard!