According to dailymail.co.uk report Sierra Leone’s top sprinter who went missing after Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games last summer, is now applying for asylum in the UK after he was found sleeping rough on the streets of London.
Jimmy Thoronka, 20, disappeared at the end of the Games and failed to return to the Ebola-hit west African country.
Already orphaned by the war in Sierra Leone, he claims that his entire adopted family have been wiped out by the disease while he has been in the UK.
Thoronka, who said that he wanted to claim asylum in the UK so he could fulfill his dream of becoming a top athlete, now faces deportation.
An online petition appealing to the authorities to let Mr Thoronka remain in the UK has so far attracted more than 57,000 signatures and well wishers have donated more than £24,000 to help the young athlete.
Among the high profile names to support his plight are supermodel Lily Cole, and comedian Russell Brand.
The Guardian said it had interviewed Thoronka before he was detained for overstaying his visa. He claimed there were no flights to Sierra Leone immediately after the Games and his team-mates all scattered, some staying with relatives and friends until they could return home.
But he said his own bag – containing his money and passport – were stolen. His visa expired last September and after a brief stint with friends, he has been sleeping on the streets in parks and on buses ever since.
He today told the BBC’s Sarah Montague that he wanted to claim asylum in the UK so he could fulfill his dream of becoming a top athlete. Asylum is only granted to those who are in fear of persecution in their home country.
He said of Sierra Leone: ‘Nobody persecute me or anything, my problem is I don’t have a family there to stay with. The person who would help me has passed by Ebola. If I go back i will not make it and I will kill myself, because i cannot pursue my dream. I want to be the fastest sprinter in the world.’
When Thoronka, the country’s number one 100m sprinter, left Sierra Leone for Glasgow, some Ebola cases had been confirmed in a few of the villages surrounding Freetown, but the epidemic had not yet taken hold of the capital.
