Cuban pastor Carlos Sebastián Hernández Armas has been stranded at the San Salvador airport since Sunday, after he and his two children were barred from boarding their connecting flight to Nicaragua.
As he himself denounced on Tuesday in a video on social networksthe airline explained to them that they were not allowed to continue their trip to Managua because they did not comply with “certain covid protocols” in the country, but he is convinced that “it has been a deal” between the Cuban and Nicaraguan authorities.
In the same recording, Hernández Armas explained that he had left the island “fleeing” with his sons, Carlos and Enoc, 17 and 10 years old, respectively, because “he was being persecuted, monitored by the Cuban government.”
The cause, detailed the priest, who until recently served as general secretary of the Baptist Convention of Western Cuba, was his position regarding the Cuban reality, “because I spoke openly about the injustices, the lack of religious freedom, lack of political freedom.
Hernández Armas assures that he has been speaking “openly” for 20 years about the things that are happening in Cuba, but as a result of the July 11 demonstrations, with more zeal. “The government has been persecuting me, it has been monitoring me all the time, threatening people close to me,” he denounced, for which he made the decision to head for the United States via Nicaragua, the path of the latest and growing exodus from the island. , since the Government of Daniel Ortega decreed the “free visa” for Cubans, last November.
Hernández Armas assures that he has been speaking “openly” for 20 years about the things that are happening in Cuba, but as a result of the July 11 demonstrations, with more zeal
According to Hernández Armas, 14ymedio, the Salvadoran immigration authorities recommended that he return to Panama, so that he can arrange his health documents and be able to continue his trip to Nicaragua. “I know that it is not a question of covid, but politics,” he declares. “I don’t have the official information, but unofficially I know that the Nicaraguan authorities are not going to let me enter in any way.”
The pastor, who in 2016 delivered the Patmos Award to Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet, asserts that they are trying to prevent this from happening: “We don’t want to go backwards, we can’t go backwards”.
Thus, although he has not yet applied for asylum in El Salvador, he says that he is carrying out “several procedures” with the help of Acnur, the UN office for refugees, for which he is awaiting a response.
Last January, journalists and activists Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho and Esteban Rodríguez were stranded, also at the San Salvador airport, after being rejected by the Nicaraguan authorities.
After a mobilization of activists and diplomats, both managed to get El Salvador to admit them into the country until their immigration situation was resolved. However, the two journalists abandoned the refugee process and chose to leave the country, thereafter acquiring an illegal immigration status. In Mexico, They were arrestedbut the country granted them a “visitor’s card for humanitarian reasons”, which will serve as their document until they reach the United States.
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