Lázaro Tolón, Yunia Milanés, Yordankis Méndez and Lismary González share an apartment; Yadira Guillén, Helec Carta and Jennifer Martínez were hired by the Old Reds club.
14ymedio, Havana, 23 June 2024 — A precarious salary on the Island “that bought practically nothing, without shoes or a uniform to train,” were part of the reasons why hockey player Lázaro Tolón, 27, fled the official delegation of Cuba on May 17, 2023, in the middle of the Pan American Games in Chile. The shortages at home were drowning him. “I struggled to get to the national team, and once I arrived, they didn’t give me what I deserve. All the sacrifice I had made wasn’t worth it. That’s why I decided to leave the country,” the Cuban athlete tells the Chilean newspaper The Clinic.
Toulon and eight other Cuban athletes are waiting for a response to their requests for refuge in the country, since they fled their respective delegations in May 2023. At this time they have temporary residence visas, which are updated every eight months.
Tolón and eight other Cuban athletes are waiting for a response to their requests for refuge in the South American country
The first months of Toulon in Chile led him to work as a tinsmith, bricklayer and guard in a car workshop. He currently has three jobs, the first in a supermarket, in addition to being a trainer in the municipal gym of Lo Barnechea and a hockey coach at the Universidad Católica. There is also Yordankis Méndez, his teammate, who is part of the group of 11 athletes who defected in search of a better future.
Yunia Milanés, 29, from Havana, who was captain of the Cuban team, counted on the complicity of her boyfriend, Toulon, to escape at the Pan American Games. With more than 60 medals in her career over 10 years, the conditions for training were terrible, and her economic situation had not improved, despite being part of the national team.
In Santiago de Chile, where the Cuban sports authorities promised them “another level” accommodation in the sports complex, the conditions did not change. “There were six people per room, all squeezed together. We had only one bathroom for everyone,” Milanés told The Clinic.
The young woman, after “working ironing pajamas, as an assistant in a bakery and packing dough for empanadas and noodles,” went on to give hockey classes to children from 5 to 10 years old at the Universidad Católica club.
In the last 14 years, 30,866 foreigners have applied for refuge in Chile, according to data from the National Migration Service
With her boyfriend and her friends, Lismary González – another of the escaped athletes – and Yordankis Méndez, the athlete shares an apartment on the 32nd floor of a building in Estación Central.
In Chile, the Cubans have found alternatives. The hockey players Yadira Guillén, Helec Carta and Jennifer Martínez were “hired by the Old Reds club, made up of former students of Redland School, in Las Condes.”
The blind swimmer, Yunerki Ortega, who was part of the Paralympic team and escaped in November 2023, seeks funding to boost his sports career.
Their lawyer of Cuban origin, Mijail Bonito, trusts that these athletes will be recognized as refugees and that they will be granted permanent residence in the South American country. “Once refuge has been established, family reunification can be requested. Hence the importance of the process being fast,” the jurist told La Tercera.
In the last 14 years, 30,866 foreigners have applied for refuge in Chile, according to data from the National Migration Service, requested via Transparency. Of these, 14 are Cuban athletes who fled in 2023, 11 during the Santiago 2023 Games.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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