The Turkish Hatayspor assures that it has not yet been able to locate the Ghanaian footballer Christian Atsu, former player, among others, of Málaga, after being informed that he had been rescued from the rubble after the earthquake that hit Turkey last Monday.
Atsu was missing after the quake along with the Turkish Super League team’s sports director, Taner Savut, but on Tuesday his vice-president, Mustafa Ozat, said the African winger had been rescued. However, this Wednesday, Hatayspor and the player’s agent confirmed that they did not know his whereabouts.
In statements collected by ‘Hurriyet’, the Hatayspor doctor, Gurbey Kahveci, stated that they had been informed that Atsu had been transferred to the hospital, but that when they went to see him “he was not there”. “Unfortunately, we accept that Taner and Christian Atsu have not been found at the moment,” he lamented.
For his part, the footballer’s agent, Nana Sechere, also assured that “the whereabouts of Christian” are “still” to be confirmed. “As you can imagine, this continues to be a devastating time for his family and we are doing everything we can to locate Christian,” she wrote on her Twitter profile.
Volkan Demirel, the Hatayspor coach, was frustrated by the initial news. “Please do not write that you have been saved without being sure. People have families and this increases hopes, sorrows, pains. There is still no news of Atsu and Taner Savut. Wouldn’t you share them if they were in the hospital? I’ll share it as soon as the news arrives,” he warned in statements collected by ‘Hurriyet’.