During the opening men’s basketball game at the Paris 2024 Olympics on Sunday, the organisers made a mistake by playing the wrong national anthem for South Sudan.

Instead of South Sudan’s anthem, the anthem of Sudan was played, leading to boos from the spectators at the Pierre Mauroy stadium.

After a brief pause, the correct anthem was played, and the crowd responded with applause. The organisers later issued a statement apologizing for the “human error.”

One of South Sudan’s players, Majok Deng, expressed his disappointment. “They [the organisers] have to be better because this is the biggest stage, and you know that South Sudan is playing,” Deng said. “There’s no way you can get that wrong by playing a different anthem. It’s disrespectful.”

Deng added, “Obviously, nobody’s perfect. They made a mistake. They played it at the end, and we moved on.”

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games organisers issued their “most sincere apologies to the team from South Sudan and their supporters for the human error.” The statement emphasized that they “fully understand the gravity of the mistake.”

This incident is the second apology from the organisers in recent days. During the opening ceremony on Friday, South Korean athletes were mistakenly introduced as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” which is the official name of North Korea.

Despite the anthem mix-up, the South Sudanese basketball team went on to win their game against Puerto Rico with a score of 90 to 79. South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, qualified for the Olympics for the first time last year. Just a week ago, they narrowly lost to the United States in an exhibition game by only one point.