CANBERRA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Home Affairs Minister issued a stern warning to eight runaway Commonwealth Games athletes, giving them a May 15 deadline to leave the country.
Peter Dutton said that if the athletes did not leave the country by May 15, he would track them down and "lock them in a local watch house" until they could be deported.
Three weightlifters and two boxers from Cameroon went missing on Tuesday but a team official on Thursday confirmed the total had risen to eight, a third of the nation's 24-person team for the games.
"These people and others who might have a similar objective need to hear this message very clearly: they aren't going to game the system, they aren't going to stay here and the Australian Border Force (ABF) officers in the compliance division will find these people, they will be held in immigration detention until they can be deported," Dutton told Macquarie Media radio on Thursday.
"The compliance officers will be out there. I promise tracking these people down and they will be deported as quickly as possible."
The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has confirmed reports that athletes from Rwanda and Uganda have also gone missing along with two squash players from Sierra Leone.
Migration agents on the Gold Coast, where the games are taking place, have reported receiving phone calls from athletes to inquire about how they can stay in Australia once the games concluded.
Ian Natherson from Ready Migration said that the vast majority of calls he had received were from African athletes including those from Ghana, Nigeria and Mauritius.
"It's been quite an interesting time with the Games," he told the ABC.
"If you overstay your welcome, eventually the authorities will catch up with you and you will be held in detention and then possibly be deported."
In a statement issued on Thursday, the ABF said the Australian government had been "working closely with the organising committee and international stakeholders to ensure Commonwealth Games officials and athletes were aware of their visa responsibilities."