JOHANNESBURG, March 26 (Reuters) – Six players from a South
African rugby club are feared dead after being swept out to sea
during a post-practice ocean swim, officials said on Monday.
One player from the Motherwell Rugby Football Club has
already been declared dead in the weekend incident in the
south-eastern coastal city of Port Elizabeth and the other five
are classified as missing.
“The five are definitely presumed to be dead by now,” Gordon
Smart of the Coastal Water Rescue Squad told Reuters on Monday.
Authorities dispatched helicopters and boats to search for
the missing players, who were preparing for an Easter
tournament. They were thought to have been swept out to sea by a
rip current.
“To have their afternoon turned into a day of tragedy is
shocking for the whole rugby community and our thoughts and
prayers go out to their families,” the president of the South
African Rugby Union, Oregan Hoskins, said in a statement.
(Editing by John Mehaffey)
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(Reporting by Cosmas Butunyi; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)
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