SAY WHAAAAT?!?! Entire African Band, 28 People, Disappear During Swiss Music Festival!
This had got to be one of the wildest cases that I've ever reported! An entire band of African Musicians has disappeared into thin air while touring with a folk music festival in Switzerland.
The band, originally comprised of 28 people, left the homeland of Burundi, an East African country just south of Rwanda, to attend the three month long folk festival on a tourist visa. By their opening act at the festival, there were only 14 members present. By their final show in the tour, only three band members were left.
Via Daily Mail:
"The members of the group had reportedly told the festival organisers that they were repressed and persecuted in their home country. Festival chairman Jean-Pierre Gauch said: 'We do not know where they went. . .We told police that they might have filed for asylum.'"
"He added that it is 'important for us to show that taking part in the festival is not a ticket to Europe', but added that 'we do not monitor our guests'.Swiss State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) Spokeswoman Emmanuelle Jaquet von Sury said that as long as their visa is valid the Burundians can move freely through the Schengen area."
"She said: 'If the police or the border guards inspect one of the people and they still have a valid visa, nothing happens. Only for an illegal stay do the police or the border guard draw up a report and inform the migration authorities.'Jaquet von Sury said that most of the time, people in such cases eventually appear again to file for asylum.It is not the first time invited guests have disappeared in Switzerland.Last April, two Algerian sportsmen who were set to compete in a tournament disappeared after their arrival at the airport in Geneva."
This might sound odd to some but, in my opinion, I think these folks ran for a better life. If they feared for their own safety in their native country, to them, it may have seemed safer to hide out in an unknkown country with foreign laws.
If people are risking it all to run away like this, it would make one wonder what's really going on in the world?
