They ask for asylum: seven Cuban athletes stay in Chile after participating in the Pan American Games

Seven Cuban athletes will request asylum or refuge in Chile after they decided to stay in the country after the closure of the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, their lawyer, Mijail Bonito, reported on Tuesday.

“There are seven athletes, six women and one man, who are going to request refuge or asylum and that is something that we are going to determine during the course of today,” the lawyer told the AFP agency.

According to the Chilean press, there are six members of the field hockey team and a fence competitor who won a bronze medal in the games that closed on Sunday.

“Their primary intention is to stay in Chile,” said the lawyer from the Hurtado y Bonito Abogados law firm, which represented the athletes.

I took on this case “for a personal issue as well, because I was born in Cuba”he added.

The lawyer explained that he came into contact with the seven athletes once they left the Cuban delegation that stayed at the Pan American Village in Santiago.

Now “none of them are in Santiago, they are at friends’ houses, support groups in three different regions” of the country, Bonito said.

The athletes have a visa to stay in Chile until November 12, but they do not have their passports because they were retained by sports leaders once they entered the country in mid-October.

The serious economic crisis it is going through Cuba has caused a massive exodus in the last two years, mainly of young people.

According to official figures, in 2022 alone and so far this year the number of emigrants in high-performance sports is 187 athletes, among them more than a dozen boxers, including the star Andy Cruz, for many considered the best boxer of the country.