The vanishing of Sri Lanka’s supposed handball team

In September 2004, 23 men travelling as Sri Lanka’s national handball team disappeared from Wittislingen in southern Germany. Their hosts initially feared they had become lost during a training run in nearby woods. But when police searched the visitors’ quarters, they found a note thanking the townspeople for their hospitality and saying the team had moved on to France.

The men had spent several days in the town, where a match against the local handball side had already prompted doubts about their sporting credentials. One opposing player remembered the encounter without hostility. “It was fun to play against the guys from Sri Lanka,” he said. “But it was clear they weren’t handballers.”

The problem extended beyond the players’ abilities. Sri Lanka had no national handball team. Hemasiri Fernando, president of the Sri Lankan Olympic Association, said the sport had no federation in the country. “We don’t even have a single club,” he said. The Sri Lankan embassy denied all knowledge of the team and the tour. An agency in Duisburg that had arranged for the men to travel to Germany could not be contacted.

The group had nevertheless obtained visas. Heidi Jung, the acting German ambassador to Sri Lanka, said the men had fooled the embassy in Colombo into issuing visas for a tour beginning on September 8. “They presented documents, and the documents looked all right, so there were no reasons to say we can’t give you a visa,” she said. German and Sri Lankan officials had been unable to trace the men, though their visas allowed them to remain until October 7.

The note’s stated destination was not the only account of where they had gone. Sports-exchange organiser Dietmer Doering, quoted by the BBC, said: “We now know they crossed into Italy.” That was Doering’s account; officials were still reporting that they had not located the group. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport said it was unclear whether the men intended to seek political asylum or enter another country illegally.

Doering also recalled the first, more innocent explanation for their absence: “We initially thought the team had got lost in nearby woods while jogging.” Among the things the men left behind, he said, was their dirty laundry.

The exchange programme was suspended. Doering said it had been successful until then. “This will be the last time we will be doing this,” he said. “I am not planning to invite any more teams from Sri Lanka.”