Since at least 1993, there have been numerous instances in which professional or secretly amateur athletes representing Sri Lanka have disappeared in foreign countries during sporting competitions they were scheduled to compete in. As of 2025, there have been at least 47 separate incidents, in total involving hundreds of people. These are so common that Sri Lankan sporting officials have nicknamed this routine of disappearing "decamping".[1]
The most infamous case was in 2004, when all 23 members of a supposed Sri Lankan "national handball team" disappeared from their hotel during a tournament in the German region of Bavaria, and were last seen arriving by taxis at the central railway station in Munich. Sri Lankan sporting authorities then stated the country had no official national handball team, and that the sport was rarely played there, confusing German investigators and the event's organizers.
Investigators claim or suspect many of these persons were using sporting events to legally get into foreign countries so they can illegally live and work in them, escaping war or economic depression in Sri Lanka. This has not been officially suspected in the case of every incident. Sri Lankan team officials now take precautions to deter such incidents, such as withholding their athletes' passports during competitions; these are not always effective.
Notable incidents
1993 (athletes in Canada)
During an unspecified sporting event in Canada in 1993, ten out of eleven members of a Sri Lankan national team disappeared and were never found. The remaining man traveled back to his home country.[1]
2004 (handball team in Germany)
On September 9, 2004, a team of 21 men and their supposed coach and manager, constituting what they claimed was Sri Lankan "national handball team" arrived in the German region of Bavaria, scheduled to play in a small local handball tournament organized by the Asian-German Sports Exchange Program (AGSEP). Sri Lankan teams had competed in foreign countries through the exchange program without any problems for 15 years until that point, so the German organizers of the handball tournament believed this team was genuinely Sri Lanka's national team. The Sri Lankans had valid visas to be in Germany for a month. Staying together in a hotel in Wittislingen, they played a number of games and lost all of them. Their opponents claimed the team was bad at handball, seemingly knowing "virtually nothing" about the sport's rules. On the morning of September 13, the Sri Lankans were still scheduled to play in a tour of seven more communities in Bavaria, but that day, all 23 men did not show up at their scheduled breakfast with the Germans. The German athletes and organizers assumed the men had gotten lost on a jog in the nearby woods, but upon investigating the team's room, they found nothing but loose items of clothing.[2][3][4]
Investigators notified border patrol officers in Germany, and contacted sporting officials in Sri Lanka, who said their country did not have an official national handball team. They also noted that handball is "very rarely played" in the country. A taxi driver in Wittislingen told Bavarian police that he and a few other local taxis were paid to bring the Sri Lankans to the central railway station of the city of Munich. Investigators theorized that the team then traveled to illegally live in Italy, where a notable Sri Lankan immigrant community had developed in recent years; this theory was based off event organizers learning that one of the players contacted his mother in Sri Lanka, telling her he was currently located in Italy and would soon acquire a job. An official with AGSEP stated that he was disappointed by the incident and that the program would not allow Sri Lankan players to compete in future handball tournaments.[5][2][3][4]
American conservative TV channel Fox News falsely covered the incident by suggesting that "a handball team full of [ethnically] Tamil terrorists had been smuggled into Germany", tying the team to the Tamil nationalist militants who were concurrently fighting the Sri Lankan government in the Sri Lankan civil war. According to AGSEP founder Dietmar Doering, in reality, only three people on the team were Tamil: "the rest were Sinhalese and one Muslim".[5]
In 2007, while participating at an international training event organized by the International Olympic Council in Italy, a triple jump coach named Gayan Malika disappeared and was never found.[1][8]
2014 (athletes in South Korea)
During the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea, two members of the Sri Lankan delegation, a hockey player and a beach volleyball player, disappeared and were never found. Investigators theorized the two were attempting to illegally live in the country. They were subsequently blacklisted from participating in multiple international sporting events.[1][9][10]
2021 (wrestling manager in Norway)
In 2021, the manager of Sri Lanka's national wrestling team disappeared during a world championship tournament in Oslo, Norway.[9]
In 2022, 10 of the 161 members of a delegation representing Sri Lanka in that year's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, disappeared over two weeks from the Commonwealth Games athlete village. First, wrestler Shanith Chathuranga, judoka Chamila Dilani, and Dilani's manager Asela de Silva disappeared, supposed without notifying other delegates. This prompted the team to notify the police. The next week, seven athletes who were unidentified in the press also disappeared. The Sri Lankan delegation had attempted to prepare for this by holding onto the passports of all 160 members throughout the duration of the Games, but this did not deter the escapees. Investigators theorized this was an attempt to illegally live and work in the U.K. West Midlands police eventually located the first three, who were not charged with a crime due to their valid visas, and they had not committed any crimes locally. The remaining athletes found success in the Games, winning multiple medals.[11][9][12]
2023 (track and field athlete in Switzerland)
In June 2023, Greshan Dhananjaya, a Sri Lankan record-holding athlete in triple jump and a national champion in long jump visited Geneva, Switzerland for an international athletics event for which he represented his country. He was accompanied at the start of the trip by women's long jump champion Sarangi Silva and coach Y. K. Kularathna. After participating in a long jump event, he disappeared and was never found. Saman Kumara Gunawardena, secretary of an organization representing national Sri Lanka sports delegations, Sri Lanka Athletics, said that the organization was not responsible to investigate the disappearance, as Dhananjaya was invited privately and not in association with a Sri Lanka Athletics delegation.[13]
2023 (archers in South Korea)
In August 2023, the annual World Archery Asia Challenge and its related athletic training program were held at the Wouju Koranju Archery Centre in South Korea. Five Sri Lankan athletes and their coach, representing the Sri Lanka Archery Association, arrived in the country at Bandaranaike International Airport, where two of them immediately disappeared, allegedly without informing the other delegates. The two archers have not been found.[14]
Causes
Civilians in Sri Lanka fleeing their homes as a result of fighting during the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009
The most common explanation given for this phenomenon is that the athletes are escaping war or economic depression in Sri Lanka, using sporting events to legally enter foreign countries so they can illegally live and work in them.[5][6][15]
From 1983 to 2009, the country experienced a civil war between its government and the Tamil nationalist militant group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was mostly relegated to its northern region.[5][16] During production of Machan around 2008, the filmmakers interviewed many Sri Lankans who could speak on the 2004 Germany disappearance. They stated that the men on the handball team had been poor back in Sri Lanka, living in slums, and that disappearing in such a manner was their solution to emigration after failing multiple times through legal avenues.[6][7] In the late 2010s and 2020s, Sri Lanka experienced an economic crisis which caused nationwide protests and violent clashes, and the ousting of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022; The Independent writer Shweta Sharma considered this as the reason for the 2022 Commonwealth Games disappearance.[11][17]
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