Six teenagers from Burundi taking part in a robotics competition in the US have been reported missing, police say.<\/p>\n
Four boys and two girls – aged from 16 to 18 – disappeared during the First Global Challenge tournament in Washington DC.<\/p>\n
The DC Police Department says they were last seen on Tuesday – on the closing day of the competition.<\/p>\n
Reports say two of the teenagers have since crossed into Canada but this has not been confirmed by the police.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the DC Police Department posted fliers of the missing group on its\u00a0Twitter page,\u00a0asking members of the public to get in touch if they had any information.<\/p>\n
The teenagers were identified as Don Ingabire, 16, Kevin Sabumukiza, 17, Nice Munezero, 17, Audrey Mwamikazi, 17, Richard Irakoze, 18, and Aristide Irambona, 18.<\/p>\n
Competition organisers say they alerted police after Burundi’s team supervisor was unable to find the teenagers.<\/p>\n
In a statement, First Global Challenge spokesman Jose Escotto said “the proper reports have been submitted to the police who are investigating the case”, according to the Washington Post.<\/p>\n
The three-day robotics competition saw teams from 150 nations compete against each other.<\/p>\n
The event aims to inspire young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths.<\/p>\n
However, it made the news earlier this month after\u00a0a team of girls from Afghanistan were initially not allowed to attend the competition because of visa problems.<\/p>\n
But US President Donald Trump stepped in at the last minute and the girls were able to travel to the US and participate.<\/p>\n
The Afghan team later won a silver medal for courageous achievement, which was awarded to teams “that exhibit a can-do attitude throughout the challenge, even under difficult circumstances, or when things do not go as planned”.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Six teenagers from Burundi taking part in a robotics competition in the US have been reported missing, police say. Four boys and two girls – aged from 16 to 18 – disappeared during the First Global Challenge tournament in Washington DC. The DC Police Department says they were last seen on Tuesday – on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[2181,264,3,9210,9520],"yoast_head":"\n