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BY STEPHENSON JACOBS (AP)
PORT-AU-PRINCE - More than half of Haiti's under-17 national soccer team apparently deserted the side during a stopover in New York, hours before a planned trip to South Korea to prepare for the U-17 World Cup, officials said Wednesday.
Thirteen of the team's 18 players - all minors under age 17, disappeared from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and their whereabouts weren't immediately known, Felix Augustine, Haiti's consul general in New York, told the Associated Press.
"We don't know exactly where they are, but we're making calls to people the Haitian community to try and get them back," Augustine said in a telepone interview.
He didn't know if U.S. authorities were helping to find the players, who arrived from Haiti on Tuesday and were scheduled to depart early Wednesday for Seoul, South Korea, to play in a warmup tournament ahead of the U-17 World Cup in August.
Augustine said authorities believe adults may have been involved in the players'desertion and warned they could face criminal charges unless they turn over the minors.
"It seems that some adults may have been involved. If so, they are going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said Augustine, who
declined to give further details.
PORT-AU-PRINCE - More than half of Haiti's under-17 national soccer team apparently deserted the side during a stopover in New York, hours before a planned trip to South Korea to prepare for the U-17 World Cup, officials said Wednesday.
Thirteen of the team's 18 players - all minors under age 17, disappeared from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and their whereabouts weren't immediately known, Felix Augustine, Haiti's consul general in New York, told the Associated Press.
"We don't know exactly where they are, but we're making calls to people the Haitian community to try and get them back," Augustine said in a telepone interview.
He didn't know if U.S. authorities were helping to find the players, who arrived from Haiti on Tuesday and were scheduled to depart early Wednesday for Seoul, South Korea, to play in a warmup tournament ahead of the U-17 World Cup in August.
Augustine said authorities believe adults may have been involved in the players'desertion and warned they could face criminal charges unless they turn over the minors.
"It seems that some adults may have been involved. If so, they are going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said Augustine, who
declined to give further details.
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