Wednesday July 28, 2021
“You are looking for a country”
After the Olympics, this boxer is without a home
Eldric Sella fled Venezuela and was preparing for the Olympic Games in Trinidad and Tobago. The boxer competes for the IOC’s refugee team in Tokyo – but a return to the Caribbean country seems out of the question. Now the UN is looking for a new home. Not just for the 24-year-old.
The boxer Eldric Sella from Venezuela, who competed in the international refugee team at the Olympic Games, has problems returning to Trinidad and Tobago. The Caribbean island state, in which Sella was initially accepted, refused to allow him to return, reported the Venezuelan media, citing his father. “Our passports have expired, renewal is difficult. The government [von Trinidad und Tobago, Anm. d. Red.] says there is no valid document to issue a visa, “quoted newsday.co.tt Eldric’s father Edward Sella.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) confirmed the problems. “The UNHCR is in discussions to find the best solution for Eldric Sella and his family,” said a UNHCR spokesman in Geneva. The UNHCR could not give further details out of consideration for the personal rights of men. Edward Sella, in turn, said: “They are looking for a country that will accept Eldric, his girlfriend and me.”
Sella left his home country in 2018 and applied for asylum in Trinidad and Tobago, the spokesman said. In Venezuela, the political and economic crisis was getting worse and the human rights situation more precarious. That is why the UNHCR is convinced that many people who are leaving the country need international protection.
Sella was the first Latin American on the refugee team to take part in the Olympic Games. On Monday, the 24-year-old lost his middleweight preliminary round match against Dominican Euri Cedeno. Sella fell to the ground after just 15 seconds and then got up again, but after just over a minute the Irish referee Diarmuid Macdiarmada ended the fight – with Cedeno as the winner.
The foreign minister of the authoritarian ruled Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, claimed that Sella was not a refugee and that no one would persecute him. He wrote on Twitter that the UNHCR was using the Sella case to stir up a mood against Venezuela. More than six million Venezuelans have left their homes because of the crisis.
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