Despite initial claims that he was pulled from the wreckage of a collapsed building and transferred to a hospital, Ghanaian international soccer player Christian Atsu is still missing following the earthquake in Turkey, according to statements made by his club and agent on Thursday.
Aydin Toksoz, the deputy head of the Hatayspor soccer club, told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency news source that Atsu’s whereabouts were still unknown. Taner Savut, the club’s sporting director, was also missing following the enormous earthquake that shook southern Turkey and Syria and left more than 17,000 people dead.
Atsu, age 31, who had previously played for Newcastle and Chelsea in England, joined Hatayspor in late 2016. The club has its headquarters in Antakya, a city in southern Turkey, which is close to the epicenter of the devastating earthquake that slammed the area early on Monday. According to the club, Atsu and Savut were reportedly inside of collapsed buildings.
Atsu’s agent, Nana Sechere, told The Associated Press in messages that although he had traveled to Turkey to look for the player, Atsu “has yet to be found.”
Atsu was rescued from a demolished structure on Monday night and transferred to a medical facility for treatment, according to a statement released on Tuesday by Hatayspor and the Ghana Football Association. Hatayspor is now “not able to corroborate this information,” according to Toksoz.
Toksoz informed the Anadalou Agency that “We have not been able to reach Atsu or Taner Savut.”
The ambassador of Ghana to Turkey declared that she was also looking for Atsu. Francisca Ahsitey-Odunton claimed on Ghanaian radio that she was given a list of 200 hospitals or healthcare facilities where Atsu would have been transported if he had been rescued and that she was unable to determine the player’s location.
She expressed her hope that he was in one of those hospitals and noted that “in all the chaos, which is fair given the circumstances,” his whereabouts hadn’t been confirmed.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which devastated thousands of structures in Turkey alone and sent more than 110,000 rescue workers trying to save survivors buried under wreckage, particularly hard affected Antakya. In Turkey, there have been more than 63,000 injuries.
Since a 2011 earthquake off the coast of Japan caused a tsunami that killed about 20,000 people, the death toll from this earthquake is the highest anywhere in the world.
In the Turkish League on Sunday, Atsu scored late in injury time to give Hatayspor a 1-0 victory over Kasimpaşa S.K. of Istanblul, earning him acclaim from his new team hours before the earthquake struck.
